Subnautica Below Zero Review - Why doesn't it hold up? 

Hey folks - this is a reupload from my other channel Ceronesthes, so if you feel like you've seen this video before under a different name, you have! Sorry for any confusion, thanks for bearing with me as I move stuff around.

i still prefer how Sam was in orbit helping Robin in Early Access. Gives you a reason to actually care about her.

I like how Subnautica 1 really enforced the illusion that you weren't supposed to survive. The only difference between Riley and the other passengers was where their life pods landed. It felt like you were beating the odds with every breath

I am astounded to hear that the developers were INTENTIONALLY trying to move away from the horror element. That was probably the most important ingredient to the first game's success! Baffling decision.

You know....listening to this made me realize that Below Zeros plot sounds like one big fanfiction

A perfect way of forcing the player to complete sam's story would just be for Alan to say "I must see my people again, but I cannot show my face again before I fix the mistake I made" and then force the player to cure the frozen leviathan, completing Sam's story, proving that the antidote works, then make the antidote again (which should have had a peeper in the recipe) and bring it with you to end of the game. It really wasn't that difficult.

I will always consider Below Zero as the Arctic DLC. It just makes sense. Also, I think Riley and Al-An would have a MUCH more interesting dynamic: The one who failed to cure the bacterium and the one who succeeded. A lowly technician and a high xeno-biologist.

The first game was not angry. It was not aggressive and it did not hate you. The first game was indifferent, and that's scarier still. It gives a sense of scale, because you're tiny and not meant to be there; the whole game leaves you with the feeling that you're not welcome in a way that even a map full of enemies, placed there especially for you, just can't. The second game is story driven, and the devs want you to get through it. There may be hazards around, but the game itself is far more... welcoming. In Subnautica _you're_ out of place. In Below Zero, you're on a ride.

Reposting the spoiler of all dialog between Robin and Al-an: Al-an: You humans do a thing. We don't do that. It's stupid. Robin: It is in fact very, very good that humans do that thing! Al-an: I do not understand. Robin: Then maybe you are wrong for not doing that thing you don't do. or: Al-an: That thing that just happened. I will re-state that it happened. Robin: Yes.

Honestly, I feel like this game was lacking any events. Like when the Aurora explodes or the Sunbeam is shot down. Big stuff like that stuck with me and made me feel small and alone within the world of subnautica

Only thing I'd point out is that the Ghost Leviathans are apparently filter feeders, but are highly highly territorial, so no they wouldn't have tried to eat the dead reaper, but if Margeruit tried going into the water they would've tried to maul her

My favorite Al-An inconsistency is when he says he doesn’t know what music is and Robin has to explain it to him and then like 30 Minutes later he explains that the Precursors are a hive mind using a musical analogy (strings in search of harmony). A+ writing there

The interactions between Robin and Alan are something straight out of a children's animated movie.

I was once walking on the ground then picked up a databox. A bug occured (I guess) and the PDA started to talk with its old voice and said « New blueprint acquired ». That blink from the old game just made me realise how much I disliked playing Below Zero and that I was actually forcing me to play it, always expecting something good to happen. I think one of the major issues with this game is indeed the lack of tension but also Robin itself. She. Talks. Every. Time. She comments everything and it snuffs out my own thoughts about a discovery. In the old game, the character didn’t said a single word so I was completely identifying to him and I really got that sensation than it was me being on the planet. Without internet, I would never have known the character had an actual identity.

One thing about the subnautica leviathans is your first encounter with a Reaper, and leviathans in general, was probably around the Aurora where the waters are murky, visibility is extremely low. You'd hear their terrifying roar and have no clue where it came from. You don't even know where to look for it because it could literally be anywhere around you. It very quickly sets the realization that the world WILL kill you and you need to respect it. Reapers are also found in the Dunes which is another pretty low visibility biome and there's warpers in there. And frequently that's what they did with enemies in subnautica. You'd hear warpers coming in from nowhere and would have to try to sneak around terrified of if they saw you or not. For the most part, the game provided a feeling of powerlessness You slowly get used to some of the early biome stuff as you play the game but past a certain depth, everything is just scary. People talk about how they don't want to go to certain biomes in Subnautica. And it's not horror in the classical horror sense, it's terror. It's that visceral knowledge that you can't do anything about your situation. Meanwhile SBV is waxing about high school philosophy with not that many predators and casual free diving down 200m without a rebreather.

The original writing for Al-An and Robin was so much better, he was sparky, rude, and even threatened Robin, telling her if she didnt leave she would die. When he got transfered to her brain he groans about it being uncomfortable and begs her to put him back. Robin's origional voice actor was SO much better, and her character was written better. My first playthrough of below zero on the full release I literally never did anything related to Sam, I completely forgot about that I was supposed to be working on her. The origional story to below zero was just superior in every way to the re-write. On top of that, while the game is focused on being less horror based, all of the fauna is all designed to be extremely aggressive looking, meaning the extensive and believable evolution tree from the first game is completely thrown out. While the fauna in the first game were designed to fit into their environment, and their designs made sense evolutionary, the animals in the second make NO sense for their environment, all of the animals being plated instead of fatty means that they would have evolved in a rough, likely warm environment and wouldn't be able to survive in the Arctic waters. It's sad to see such a promising premise flop so hard.

having to hear Robin eat food during my playthroughs were the worst, you described the pain perfectly

The main character not beeing able to shut up is pretty much my biggest complain. The constant talking completely destroyed any immersion for me.

I'll say basically what I said in the original upload: The most infuriating part of this game, for me at least, third to the lack of anything remotely scary, and second to the plot in general is the writing. Just as you pointed out, both Robin and Al-An are both high ranking scientists, both are xeno-biologists, they're the ideal people to speak to each other in this situation...and yet they are some of the most illogical and poorly written characters I've seen. Al-An can barely remain consistent on whether or not he's an individual or a collective or emotional or emotionless, and Robin just vomits unfunny quips and cliché pieces of dialogue constantly. Basically, Al-An feels like a human poorly imitating an AI and Robin sounds like a child trying to act like a philosopher, neither remotely sounding like xeno-biologists let alone any kind of scientist. If Al-An was, say, a guard at one of the alien facilities and Robin was an Alterra dock worker or something, I'd be way more forgiving, but when you put these characters on such a high pedestal, you need the writing to back it up. Overall, I just feel like Subnautica was a very fortunate accident now. The devs' true vision of the game they wanted seemingly went against almost everything that made the 1st game beloved: crushing isolation, fear of the unknown, a focus on deep diving, and being immersed in the game world. I know I might sound like I'm mad, but I'm mostly just disappointed. The devs obviously have the potential to make another amazing game like Subnautica, and they know what people loved about it, but they intentionally ignored what fans liked to follow their original vision for the game. Usually I'd respect a creator sticking to their guns and making what they truly want to make, it's just unfortunate that what these creators wanted to make was this. I should probably end this wall of text on a high note, and that would be how well made this video is. Like, literally, it's the most well written video on the game that I've seen and I'm glad it's here, even if it needed to be reuploaded.

I think one of the best things to note on the topic of the empty biomes is I NEVER went into the area with the jellyfish because I thought they were the games way of telling me "this is the edge of the map, just void down there" and the fact the entire area looked smoothed over and empty just convinced me that was a map edge. I'm also glad to hear I'm not the only one that didn't understand the "B-Plot" story with her sister and why she's blowing up everything. She just sounds like a complete nutter. She heard 1 time that her company was using her to make a bio weapon and instead of writing poetry like her sister or Openheimer she decided to kill all her friends who 100% were not in on the scheme. She's clearly the villain of the story!

This is why I missed the Beta story. It ends with the orbital base, which our sister is on, had a containment breach and the Kharaa is free. We go to one of those baby Sea Emperor Leviathans and chat and theyre like "oh yeah sure here's some Enzyme-42". We send it up, aaaaand this other missing Alterra guy on the surface who we were looking for - who could possibly also have one of the Precursors in their head - activates a massive planetary shield to destroy the shuttle with Enzyme-42. I miss that. I wish they went in that direction.

i remember when the Seatruck first came out, i thought it'd move more like a water snake - but instead, it moves like a metal bar. Everything goes down at once (just like the cyclops), but it doesn't work here because of how narrow the caves are. and as you said, it moves slower with each module you add.

On the topic of the sea truck, on my last playthrough I found it be ridiculously overpowered and completely indestructable due to a small quick in its design. When you're driving it, the game treats it as a seamoth, so hostile creatures can and will attack you. When you're not driving it and you have modules attached, it switches to being a base and creatures cannot attack it. I found this out by accident when jumpscared by a shadow leviathan and accidentally letting go of the sea trucks control's, leading to the beast suddenly being unable to attack. As long as you let go of the controls before the attack animation plays, nothing can hurt the sea truck.

Below Zero was so disappointing after the lightning in a bottle that was the original Subnautica. Genuinely confused by most of the decisions made by the development team and my expectations are now at a record low for any potential Subnautica 3.

The first thing I noticed was how trash the pda is in bz but in the og I would constantly smile at the little quips like when it said "what ever its design was It clearly failed" when it was talking about that sunken base that got attacked by a sea dragon

The plot of Subnautica: Below Zero could have been improved in the following ways: 1) Make Robin the silent protagonist. Keep the part where she came to the planet looking for her sister. Reveal that she is looking for her sister through audio files and messages on her PDA. Have her decipher data pads and pick up notes as she searches for any traces of same. Her being silent and only showing emotion when she hears Sam's voice (rubs her hands nervously, drums her fingers against the keyboard, or punches the wall upon realizing she is at another dead end) would only highlight her determination and how much she put at stake. Make Sam talk to Robin in the found records and PDAs to show that she always found some comfort in imagining she is talking to her sis. 2) Make Robin an engineer and Sam a xenobiologist declared dead in a research mission gone wrong. All Robin knows is that Sam went to the planet with a team of researchers, and while the rest made it back successfully, she never returned. Alterra was reluctant or slow to send a rescue party (you can attribute that to their bureaucratic/greedy philosophy that was glimpsed in Subnautica), so Robin took it upon herself to discover what happened. Also, after arriving on the planet, Robin has all her tools with her because she came prepared. She basically follows a trail of breadcrumbs, finding traces of Sam in some friendlier biomes -- but then she realizes that Sam went deeper than she calculated, which requires her to build new equipment or improve her current one to be able to follow her. 3) Connect Sam's and Al-An's plotlines -- leave the Khara virus alone, it's done. Reveal that Al-An was the reason why Sam went too far. Maybe after studying whatever was left of Precursors and becoming convinced that some of their race is STILL on the planet. Eager about the unique opportunity to encounter an actual sentient alien, Sam tried to promote the idea to other scientists. Still, they took it with a grain of salt since they wanted to stay within their current mission (researching local flora and fauna) and had no desire to dive into dangerous biomes unprepared. However, Sam was afraid that if she didn't provide tangible evidence to Alterra, there would be no other expedition, so she tried to investigate Precursors all by herself and never made it back. Here is also a good place to mention the difference between the two sisters: for instance, Sam has always been fascinated by the concept of aliens, while Robin felt much safer thinking that they were alone in the universe, which was the subject they often argued about. 4) Make Al-An upload himself into Sam's mind and basically make her his host -- and when Robin finally finds her, he explains through Sam that he needs to build a portal back to his world. It's also a great opportunity to tie the events of Subnautica to Subnautica BE by Al-An catching up with what he missed and building a portal to his homeworld. He also needs to bring the cure from the Kharaa Bacterium with him but he lacked knowledge on how the cure was found, so he still thinks he needs to collect enzymes Sea Emperor Leviathans -- but the leviathans kept responding to him aggressively, recognizing him as Precursor and not letting him get close. So he delegates Robin to do the task of collecting enzymes, promising her that he will release Sam once he is done. Also, it'd be better to leave his intentions open to the player's interpretation: he doesn't elaborate on the origin of the Kharaa Bacterium, he doesn't even let Robin approach him directly (maybe he always speaks to her from another room or through comms to trick her into believing she is helping her sister who isn't well), he states what he needs and nothing else. Make it unclear whether he is like that because he is shady or because he has trouble articulating words using a human voice box and brain activity, to preserve the air of mystery surrounding Precursors. 5) Let Al-An leave alone, but not before warning that he isn't sure how Sam's mind was affected by his intrusion, resulting in a cliffhanger. So, the next scene shows Robin back at her base, where sends a signal to her acquaintance (who promised to pick her up if she would be alive to send a signal) -- and yes, it turns out she *could* leave, she had a way back, she just didn't need it without knowing the truth or finding Robin. She then waits, worried, near Sam who is just lying unconscious on a cot at her base. The PDA informs Robin about Sam's poor health condition due to emaciation, lack of nourishment, sunlight, and generally, her body overexerting itself to support intense brain activity. Then Sam opens her eyes and stares at Robin, bleary-eyed and confused, which makes her (and our) heart think believing that Al-An mind-wiped Sam like a floppy disk -- but then Sam says "Robin?" in a weak whisper, and the credits roll.

I had a hard time getting through Below Zero, but there was exactly 1 biome that really grabbed my attention, and it was the Arctic Spires. Why? Because I also did it wrong by going through it on foot, AND there was a snowstorm in the area that I thought was just the natural weather for that biome. Being able to hear the Ice Worms and feel the ground shake as I moved from spire to spire in the nearly pitch white hellscape was more horrifying than anything the first game had done by a huge margin. The worm was way more aggressive, but because of how much I couldn't see and the fact that I kept managing to stay just BARELY out of reach, it felt like I was a mouse sneaking my way through a room full of hungry cats. It was exhilarating and horrifying. And... It really shows how much the horror element is important to the Subnautica experience. Below Zero deciding to pull back on the horror element was unfortunately a terrible decision, and nothing shows it better than the fact that Below Zero's best section is also its scariest.

What I think it is, and maybe this is what happened, is when the original story was being made the entire studio worked together and they had a scheduled plan and felt safe. Then they got the wrong message, removed all of it, and panicked at the creative stage so they decided to do one of the worst things some studios have done and dictated portions of it out to groups with poor communications between. Every single bit of dialogue, every character, every interaction, every plot point, feels like a different person thought it up. By themselves, they make sense and might have been good. -Altera being the company it is would use a bacteria to hold more power. A team of scientists would be pressured to work on it even knowing they are making a weapon, one of them would go out of their way to try fixing it. -A scientist asking a mercenary for help, one that would most likely be insane, and gets told to bomb it all. -The mercenary, still insane, says the only way she can be alone is by destroying a radio, despite them having eyes on the entire planet at this point. -A sister comes looking for answers, sneaks during a storm and crashes on the planet and probably losing most of her equipment (like the previous game). -The sister interacts with alien ruins and are forced to work together under stressful circumstances. -The alien constantly being both robotic and organic in personality, a hivemind and an individual, a scientist and an absolute fucking idiot, could be due to him going insane after wiping a planet of life then nearly dying after locked up for a thousand years. And more, like every point by itself works. Everyone had good ideas. But puzzle pieces don't work together when they are made individually and not as a group. Also fuck that PDA voice. I hated it. I wish Alan took the role of the PDA voice once he attached himself.

Sub zero feels like it's holding your hand and not allowing you to be scared, forgetting why people called the original a "horror game wearing the skin of a survival game." While the original's scare factor slowly wears off, you were attacked by each of the original's unique biome creatures. never actually allowing you to have a moment to catch your breath.

One thing I remember thinking constantly during Subnautica was “Oh this place is so cool! I can’t wait to set up a base here!” I think I thought that maybe once in BZ.

I feel like Below Zero would have been much better if it was really just a DLC to the first game like how it was originally planned, rather than a completely new game. It was very obvious that they stretched the content for miles in order to fill the amount of a full game, when they could have just kept it to a smaller amount and added it to the Crater somehow. Just take *one* of the above ground biomes (preferably Arctic Spires because that's the most visually cool one) and use the above ground flora and fauna there. And for the underwater, take the most interesting from that pool as well, which would be the Twisty Bridges (all forms), Tree Spires, Crystal Caves, Fabricator Caves, and Deep Lilypad Caves, though obviously they should all be tweaked to fit the first game's style more. It may be less content, but it would feel less monotonous than trudging through an entire game of almost nothing.

The reason things run away is not to keep you safe it's to prevent you from killing them. It's also why they removed the stasis rifle. The developers made it clear in a number of posts they regretted adding that item in because it allowed players to kill leviathans. when in truth most only killed 1 or 2 juvenile ghost leviathans. Shadow Leviathans are the only ones that a killable because they are stuck in a small space.

I think a huge problem with the land stuff is that the movement wasn’t really improved upon over the first game. You still move slowly and clunkily. The snow fox doesn’t really work with the terrain you’re given and even in the more wide open spires you’re constantly getting knocked off of it by the worm. If the movement on land felt better, more graceful and clean like moving underwater does, it probably would have done wonders for those sections.

The main issue was that they focused to much on the story and made the world fit that story where the opposite was true for the first game. the story was made to be passive and the world felt much much larger, deeper, and scary.

Subnautica is a game where you feel like you're not supposed to be there, but Below Zero is a game where the world itself is designed to help you survive. Oxygen plants? Titan holefish? Thermal lilies? Fevered peppers? How am I supposed to be immersed in a world where you ask me to stretch my disbelief this much with such wildly implausible evolutionary results?

I think it was a mistake letting the player meet the precursors.

I remember watching Jacksepticeye encounter a shadow leviathan in one of the early access builds. I believe that at the time, the time they were founded was significantly darker because I remember being terrifying as hell, and then when I actually got my hands on the game itself didn’t really stand out much

It seemed weird to me that Enzyme 42, the whole point of the first game, is now something you can fabricate out of local flora in the glacial basin. They should have leave the Sea Emperor Juvenile in so that then when you encounter it, Alan will ask how is it that a Sea Emperor is found in Sector Zero. This opens up an opportunity to have Robin tell us about what happened to Ryley, and to Alan how there was a survivor that finished what he and his people have struggled for so long 2 other details that i find weird is that how Alterra seemingly never caught up with Robin tampering with their radar, and Alan activating the Phase Gate yet leave it in the open and did nothing to cover their track when leaving the planet. In original story, one of the research member intentionally infected the entire board of operation overseers then activate the planetary shield which kinda make more sense than what we got (despite the fact he somehow activated the planetary shield) Aside from story details, i think i must point out the lack of leviathan class in BZ. You almost never run into them, aside from the Shadow lev and Ice Worm which you're obligated to run into them to progress the story. In original game, you'd know they're there the moment you enter their territory with their spine chilling roars and shrieks, and the game ensures that you will ALWAYS run into them if you want to progress the story. Mean while in BZ, i only ran into the Chelicerate like once and never found them again, glow whales are mostly neutral til you get really close so they pose little to no threat, and the Shadow lev was horribly done compared to Sea Dragon because unlike the Sea Dragon, you can grapple the Shadow lev with the prawn suit and drill it to death while the Sea Dragon will swat you out of the way then continue attacking you. Basically Shadow lev just becomes a joke when you know how to deal with it. As for Ice Worm... ngl i abused the game's physic (by flinging myself around at mach 3 in the prawn suit using grapple like a sling shot) instead of making a snow fox so i never had to deal with them, although they are the most dangerous i admit given the fact you CANNOT fight them

The original Subnautica with the art direction of Alex Reis, and QOL features of Below zero would be the perfect survival game. Period. Those two things are the only redeeming qualities of below zero. Alex is a brilliant artist and worldbuilder, and his designs are uniquely alien, and all fit into some kind of phylogenic tree, like real alien life. Features like new furniture, pinned tabs, large rooms, and beacon customization make Below Zero quite smooth and polished to use- but don't help a lackluster game.

Great video! I gave up on BZ after I cured the frozen leviathan. I was dumbfounded that the MAIN QUEST ended with my character simply saying "ok. I habe closure now". I was so confused because it was such a lame way to wrap up the literal main story line. I thought something would happen, but that was actually it and I just stopped playing shortly after. Also the way Marge tells you what happened to your sister by giving you a PDA? ???? And then neither of you say another word and you just leave???? I was SO confused and so sure I was missing something. Holy hell the story was bad!

i was nearly shocked when i saw that an hour and a half long video with high quality sound and some great montage had only 16 likes. But comments do explain why it is how it is, so ye, thanks for the review! Just wanted to say that it's really strange how an average player doesn't feel free in the game that's supposed to be about discovering stuff in open world. Devs made it way more linear for no reason. The whole SBZ feels like the lost river and lava zones biomes from the original game because these biomes are like tonnels with doors in the walls with necessary loot behind them. And the entirety of SBZ feels kinda like that which is like.... why

All the devs had to do was add new building parts and quality of life improvements to the first game, lean in to base-building, and maybe add some more DLC missions.

another thing too about Robin and Al-An is that in the early access version, she actually reacted to him being in her head. and after he tells her his name, she's comments how she's waited to meet intelligent life for her entire career/lifetime, and the first dude she meets is called Alan and it's really funny, cuz that's kinda how i'd expect someone to react. You'd think he'd have a more alien name, but it's just fucking "Alan", lmao. but now, she doesn't do that. She just gets mad at him for "going silent" on her as if they're old friends reuniting after a long-held feud, rather than her meeting a literal alien and justifiably reacting to the situation as such. it's just so bland and devoid of personality. I guess it was changed because robin got re-written to be a very generic "strong female lead" and they forgot to give her any other personality traits. There's a couple other things like that too, but i don't remember exactly which ones. finally finished the game a couple weeks ago purely out of spite, and by god is it worse than i remember.

Honestly, the penguin dudes are the biggest highlight of this game. Like even if it wasn’t a great successor, they did one thing better than the original, and added those adorable goobers.

There is one important thing that the Sea-truck sales at as what is in my opinion a replacement for the cyclops generally more than just the Seamoth, you know when you have all the modules taped onto it and it’s now a mobile base like the cyclops. Vibes. It’s just a long tube. The Cyclops on the other hand made me feel like a submarine captain with its standing piloting position and all the cool gizmos on the screen, speed-settings and silent running mode, and grand scale to the thing with a full 2 decks. Yeah I get it it’s a bit much especially in the smaller map of bellow zero but MY GOD (like everything else) THE VIBES ARE GONE! I SEEK TO BE A CAPTAIN BELLOW THE SEA! NEMO IN HIS SUBMARINE! Alas, that feeling ‘tis gone…

He came up with a better story than a whole team

This I why I’m so exited so Acii’s Call of the Void mod where if you make it past the ghost leviathans you can find little islands in the void and other cool stuff. It leans far more into the horror element and encourages exploration and interaction with the environment so much more and includes so much new flora and fauna.

Its actually crazy how i complained about the exact same things you did except i did before they even released the alpha version.. I was invested in the subnautica community because i LOVED the game so i joined a lot of different foruns where Devs usually answered questions or did constant updates on what they were aiming with the new game. I remember reading a dev post where they introduced Sam and the alien dude, they talked about how they were trying to make a story with objectives rather than finding it yourself by exploring. I also remember reading that they wanted to put more dialogue into the game and ease a little bit of tensions. After reading those posts, i did a lot of my own threads asking why were they running away from the things that made subnautica 1 successful eg: mistery terror/fear of unknown and scary exploration with the feeling of isolation and that you were completely alone. They either ignored or had the same npc response that they were aiming at different things, its actually insane that the huge majority at the time agreed with me and i actually saw thousands of posts asking the same thing, i cant believe they moved foward with such a nonsense story. Can't say i didnt warn them lmao

A lot of the problem I had with the tension was that you got attacked so often that they couldn’t make it fatal because it was unavoidable. And once you were attacked and survived you just learned to repair and continue, over and over because you couldn’t avoid being attacked. The worm ended up being unavoidable, in early access I spent ages stealthing around so it wouldn’t find me, in subsequent play throughs I can’t seem to avoid it at all, even the thumpers you’re supposed to use are next to useless so you just stomp around in a prawn suit and repair every so often, it takes all the tension and fun out of encountering the worm. I think the snow fox could have been fun if it had a large section of map devoted to it, I feel like it’s purpose should be to go places fast so you don’t freeze to death but you need to have a big map for that to work(instead we got a small maze like area where you just continually crash into walls and the snow fox speed was never that useful so instead it was just a really cumbersome hot water bottle. The prawn suit kinda makes both the worm and the cold a non-issue(except that traversing a large area in a slow prawn would have been tedious). The same problem exists with the shadow leviathans you can’t avoid them so just keep repairing and keep going. With reapers from the original they would do most of your seamoths health in damage in a single attack so if you were slightly damaged then it could just destroy it or leave it on so little health that while running away to find somewhere safe to repair a collision could destroy it. That was scary because you could be left in hostile waters with out your support vehicle so you really had to avoid it.

25:56 Anyone who adds eating sounds like that in ANY video game should be barred from EVER making sound design decisions in games or any audiovisual medium.

As an Indian, I prefer the accent/voice of the first game over the Indian accent of the second one.

I think the only disappointing encounter I had in the original Subnautica, was the sea dragon. However, It’s sound design was amazing and really added to the atmosphere of the lava zones. (It was disappointing for me as it looked really goofy, and I was easily able to outmaneuver it with my prawn suit CONSTANTLY, and in the active lava zone, it didn’t even notice me.)

Funny thing, i never knew how to get the hydraulic fluids to unlock the bridge portion, so i just ingored it and kept playing the game. I came back to it a while later with a prawn suit and a grappling hook, and i realized i could catapult myself over the gap without fixing the bridge. Prawn suit carries the entirety of the land area with only that grappling hook in general, fastest mobility option in the game.

what I'd have changed is replace the hover bike with the hover van from the promo art. Then, the crystal caves are accessible only once you go over the ice worm territory. Equally, the water in the crystal caves is just above freezing, so you'll still loose heat if you try to swim in it. This would be the contrast to Sub 1, as it ended in boiling hot lava caves. So, you need the prawn suit to dive down, simply so you don't freeze to death. But, if you try to walk the prawn across the worm's territory, it gets aggro fast, since the prawn is very heavy and very audibly makes noise as it walks. The answer is, you need to find the hovervan Sam drove, that she then accidently encased in rock during her brief terrorism career. All the over vans were taken by altera. So, you can scan that van, as you learn of the new mission. You can then load the prawn into the hover van like its a mobile moon pool, and this van can glide across water and ice equally well, while also providing lots of storage. So you carefully navigate the ice worm territory in the van, to reach the opening to the crystal caves, where you can unload the prawn suit and jump in. Now the ice worm has a story use other than minor annoyance for a non-crucial story.

best video on this topic ive seen. i cant believe the letsplayers ive watched just did not see these glaring shortcomings in the sequel. when i played the game, i was literally shocked at how bad it was. and the story and cringe dialogue is just the start of these obvious problems!

The only point I'd add is the inconsistent voice direction. Robin will not be silent under any circumstances, monologuing even when Al-An isn't there yet. However, when a leviathan or shark come barreling towards her, she is dead silent. The moment where even a silent person would yell out something in a panic, she is mute. It breaks the last pieces of immersion for me.

Personally, I've always seen Al-An as the sort of creature that was part of a hivemind, but having been separated from it for so long, has developed more of a personality of his own. But since he had no one to communicate with and no real prior experience, he doesn't know how to process how to properly be his own person so he keeps contradicting himself about being many and one. We learnt from the previous game data entries that hiveminds can disagree with its components, form differing solutions to solve problems and even have internal conflict until one faction wins out and the hive stabilizes. Architects are undoubtedly capable of individual thought even with their hivemind, but value the hive more than the individual within it, thus also giving Al-An skewed ideas of things like the value of individuality and personal goals or values. The way he contradicts himself about the stuff like dreams and music in-game I see as him learning about and starting to appreciate those things while living inside Robin's mind and seeing her memories/experiences etc. In doing so, he also starts to appreciate Robin a whole lot more as they journey together, little by little. Thinking of him as a character struggling to cope with both responsibility and his changing self has made me tolerate him better. Perhaps thanks to that, I find the architect storyline to be overall better than the human ones (which isn't saying much though). But this is all really just me filling plotholes with my hyperactive author brain.

Edit : I'm talking about the early access alpha builds of the mage under the "First" category. First we had a good story, that felt like a continuation of the original story. The game had Juvenile Sea Emperors swiming in the outskirts of the map and they were involved with the original story, wich was more centered around the whole Kharaa bacterium thread. First we had a better sounding voice sctress and a relationship with AL-AN that felt much more organic (no pun intended). First we had the original PDA, that we all recognise and love. Then the writer left, and the story got re-written. Most of what made it a story got washed away or simply just replaced with a plot that doesn't make any sense the moment you do your first doible take. "Wait come again?" Then we god a squeaky gullible moron of a protagonist. And Finally... the PDA... and that's enough said already. All I want to know is : WHY DID THEY SCRAP A PERFECTLY FUNCTIONING STORY CHANGE THE VOICE ACTRESS AND MAKE A MOCKERY OF THE PDA ? Rant over. :D

So the story was changed because the lead writer at the time quit. He always wanted to work for small studios and after Subnautica became so hugely successfull he felt like the company was getting too big and it didn't feel like it used to, so he quit. So they had to get a new writer and she decided that the old story sucked and made a new one, which is what we now got. Apparently she's mostly known for working on the Tomb Raider remake and one of the later Assassins Creed games.

Every improvement made to habitats in BZ should've been added to the original Subnautica. Large rooms and glass roofs are a godsend for immersing yourself in the environment, having specific docking modules for the Seamoth and Cyclops would've been great for making your habitats look less like an underwater house and more of an actual seabase, and the control room is just the cherry on top. Because of how small the map is in BZ, there's no incentive to build multiple large bases. Aside from building a few outposts to serve as pitstops between "dangerous" areas, the only reason why you would build multiple bases in BZ is if you build research and/or alien containment bases for immersion, but you can't immerse yourself in the world because the environment is weaker than the original and it wouldn't make sense story wise because you're trying to hide from Alterra. So that leaves you with no gameplay or story reason to expand beyond 3 or 4 rooms.

The hope poems hit harder with the original voice actress, who was actually GOOD. I was also expecting Alan to betray us at the end, and was more surprised that he DIDNT when he finally got his body. Wait THATS why they scrapped the original story? I thought it was internal problems or a writers strike that caused them to have to redo the story, and that’s why it was so bad in general cuz they didn’t have actual writers do the new story line. They thought they had enough biomes?? I was waiting for a cool dark trench biome with glaciers above!! They barely used any glaciers or ice in the water.

The ice worm section was presented in a way that made me think the thumpers were practically required, so I made them before seeing any ice worms and thus rarely saw the ice worms.

one of my biggest gripes with the progression (primarily in base building) is that there's this new mineral detector tool but then the scanner room is still easily accessible

Nice to see this pop up again. I’ve watched it several times, and I find it cathartic. I don’t HATE BZ…it’s still fun, just less good in every way. I think what explains a lot it is: SN had amazing ludonarrative harmony. Simple gameplay loop: explore, gather, craft, upgrade, so you can explore farther and deeper, so you can gather better resources, so you can build better things, so you can explore…etc etc etc. Which perfectly supports the simple but engaging plot; everything you do is in order to survive and get off this planet. Which is supported by an ambiance of isolation, solitude, dread and foreboding. In the process, you unravel the mystery of what’s going on. In BZ…the story is a garbage fire, your character even forgets why she’s there halfway though, you don’t even need most of the upgrades to…gather alien boyfriend parts or whatever… There’s just no point to any of it, none of the parts fit together, even with themselves…

The original game is in my top 5 favourite games ever. Picking up Below Zero, my standards were very high, as was set by the former game. Sadly, it really hasn’t got the charm the first had. The ocean just doesn’t feel… alive enough. I miss the original wonder of Subnautica where you can go anywhere and find new creatures and environments. Below Zero is just ice, more cold stuff, maybe a cool biome or two here and there, and the same 5 fish copy pasted everywhere. I hope that if they make future entries, they take the feedback and make a complete experience once again.

A good survival game is going to, by default, be pretty close to a horror game as far as the minimum tension is concerned. Below zero felt like subnautica for toddlers

I hope this video blows up. It’s genuine and precise. This is my first time looking at your channel and I love you already.

The first 5 minutes were so exciting because I had absolutely no idea what was going on and regularly dived WAAAY below my safe depth. I thought this would be the gimmick of the game: going beyond your comfort zone to progress. However, once I discovered the high capacity tank, the game lost all that precious tension. I think that the smaller world was a workable idea, but they seemed to hate the idea of making the player uncomfortable and so it all just kinda feels underwhelming

I feel like the biggest thing for me is that I was never afraid of dying. The map was so small that you can memorize it very easily, the game is basically never dark they all are lit by bioluminescent plants and stuff like that, and really the monsters weren’t all that scary they don’t lurk in the dark like the reaper they don’t reworded massive roars like there was no big threat no scary environments which is what I liked about the first game you were stranded on an alien planet where everything wants to kill you or make you shit yourself

My favorite part of the "why do humans use ball and socket joints they're so primitive" exchange is that alan's new body clearly ALSO uses ball and socket joints, meaning he's also a hypocrite who decided to roast robin for literally no reason.

Honestly the largest thing I felt while playing the game was massive confusion as to why they thought removing lead drill piles was an okay idea, made base building feel needlessly hostile.

Below Zero needed more pacing, I ended up getting the Prawn Suit pretty early in the game, which pretty much made every encounter after that worthless.

They were far too busy YAS KWEENing to make a video game.

I remember when they announced Below Zero, the community (or maybe the devs, it's hard to remember exactly) assumed that the game would be simply larger than what the original was. To be honest, I believe we deserved that much; a better, more unique take on an already incredible idea that just worked out fantastically thanks to its unique design direction. Hell, there were even teasers that some of the bigger community-made submarines could potentially make it in Below Zero, which is what personally excited me. What we got was a project about half the size and length of the original with twice as many bugs that make it feel like it's still in pre-release alpha, but they try to convince you it's the final product because they didn't feel like actually finishing it. This game feels like it was made by a team completely misguided and disconnected from the original development squad who made the first one. It's a shame.

Pretty brave to be insulting the Cyclops. I think part of the reason the vehicle works so well in the original is for the longest time you are just at the mercy of the unknown and terrified. Until you get the massive sub that you can fit all the amenities of a base onto and the difference in exploration and comfort is very noticeable.

I remember some moments from the first game where it felt like I was breaking the game and wasn't supposed to be so deep/far which is a feeling that stuck with me. The deadly curiosity I felt was like an itch I just had to scratch no matter the danger, I wanted to go deeper and deeper even if I knew I probably wouldn't be able to make it back. Below Zero just lacks these feelings because Robin is there by choice.

You forget, in Subnautica we can find that the Architects HAD HUMAN ARTIFACTS, meaning they came into contact with early humans are took some of our stuff for their little museum, and yet AL-AN DOESN"T KNOW ANNYTHING ABOUT HUMANS????

I just wish the map had a different layout or had some cut ideas implemented, because the more fleshed out biomes are pretty gorgeous. The lilypad caves are very different looking than the actual lilypad biome and the cave connection to the crystal caverns is a neat trail. I really do like the twisty bridges. Purple vents would be a nice weird small biome that has a bunch of little patches. the east arctic is a nice view if you’re the #1 glow whale fan but it’s empty. The kelp forest caves are neat, but the actual kelp forest being a color swap from the original game is horrid. I actually really like the northern arctic fringe butting against the iceberg and being super dark even during the day, but its just… there. The thermal vents, the east and west arctic, and the sparse arctic are absolutely useless and provide no exploration incentive. The few interesting biomes we have are clustered next to each other and muddled by the sheer amount of bland copy paste wastes. In the original, there are the floating islands, mountains, bulb zone, dunes, sea treader’s path, wreckage, sparse reef, and grand reef for non-repeating biomes. Some of the most memorable areas, the blood kelp zone and mushroom forests, ARE repeated zones but have different threat levels and feels completely different based on which one you’re in. None of the repeating biomes in below zero feel worth being repeated, and the map is so small anyway that the repetition is more like an uninterrupted chain than splotches of repeated terrain. Also the lost river is such a cool deep scary underwater cave that the crystal caverns PALE in comparison. it’s just a straight shot more or less with no cool detours and scenic shots. If you’re not familiar with the river, it’s pretty easy to get turned around in its many chambers and routes. The ghosts are dangerous, but the large pieces in the environment can actually protect you from them, and they’re placed in grand chambers to emphasize how grand THEY are. the shadows are just sprinkled throughout an incredibly samey looking tube, that is very easy to get lost in because it IS so similar looking all the way down. There’s a single tunnel, a handful of crevices, and two different entrances, but it is a straight tube. The fabricator caverns are a big blob of the exact same cave with a color swap and even more crammed in fucking shadows. it’s a joke. they threw in some neat plants in there as set dressing. It’s bright as hell, it’s not unique, the shadows are just annoying, so you get NONE of that fun tension keeping you on guard as you go into what is supposed to be the most dangerous part of the game. Whack. Whack as hell. It evokes the first game, but only to prove the first game’s strengths. The world design can be beautiful at times, but it is squandered by how lackluster and uninspired the rest is. It feels like the first draft of something truly great. The freeform element of story and exploration from the first game is expertly reflected in the large wide open map, and the confusing, railroaded story element of this game has been shoved into a wasted, overbearing and oversimplified map.

here's a light observation I made that doesn't really mean anything I just thought it was interesting: think of the kill animation for the reaper leviathan when it attacks you. it grabs you and swallows you whole, so fast that you'll miss it if you blink. now think of the chelicerate and squidshark animations: weirdly drawn out, detailed, and slow. it feels like somebody with a vore fetish was hired into the studio between the two games. doesn't mean a whole lot of anything but it just feels weird.

I know that tons of other creators have already done this, but I would love to hear your review of the first Subnautica! Your way of analyzing and interpreting the various aspects of the game is super interesting and a video essay similar to this one covering the first game would be awesome

Everytime i get subnautica cravings and want to go and play...I ALWAYS go back to the original rather than below zero

Just beat Subnautica for tge first time. Loved it. Still after beating it, I have no clue as to how anyone could make a true sequel to it.

When i played through the game i didnt even get Alan until i had basically done all the stuff on land and spent a considerable amount of time exploring. I didn't even know about Alan untill i started following some flashing lights to where you find him initially.

Honestly besides the story problems everything else sounds like the devs sat there with some guy looking over their shoulder saying make it less terrifying make it less subnautica and they had no choice but to comply for some reason. at least thats what it feels like

I couldn't find the final body part in the purple crystal caves for a while because I figured I had missed something on or near the surface. I found the alien base in the red crystal caves but was told to come back later with all three blueprints instead of 2/3. I needed a hint from a friend who was kind enough to look at the wiki for me and let me know what biome to explore in, so I didn't have to spoil its exact location to myself. I was not guided to it by Alan as I had been with the other artifacts so I had no reason to assume I missed it the first time through the purple biome I had already visited. He does not pipe up about it until you are well and deep on traversing the dead-end route housing the organs. I also could not find Marguerit's base for a while after my PDA gave me her PRAWN's Last Known Location. Maybe it was changed after the game was released but that waypoint absolutely did not pinpoint her base location for me, nor the cave entrance that leads to her. That waypoint is way closer to the destroyed nuclear Alterra base, which is what I thought the game wanted me to find from that waypoint. There was evidence in that ruined base that Marguerit had sabotaged it, and I figured it might have "happened" super recently, like the survivors in the other life pods dying off-screen while Riley is knocked out in Subnautica's intro. I considered it might even be possible that I had missed out on talking with those people before she blew them up seeing as NPCs were suddenly on the table! Thanks for putting into words much of what I thought was missing from this game. I hope UWE understands these nuances if the franchise continues.

what broke it for me was that the biomes dont make sense there is no cycle of life every biome in the original all had gamey borders but the creatures in it all made sense and fit in the foodcycle it all felt natural as well as tense, it felt alive

Subnautica director : Charlie Clevaland Subnautica Writer : Tom Jubert Subnautica Compositor : Simon Chylinski Each one of them left the company or was straigth up fired, leaving talentless people in charge. Subnautica was great for it's game design, it's story and the tension build up with the music.

The land sequences were totally dead to me when I realized the prawn is a perfect counter to everything that's dangerous about them. I also found a goofy physics bug with the grapple arm that let me yeet myself halfway across entire biomes at once

I think a cool way to add tension where it wasn't in the original would be to make power and technology harder to obtain. If the idea in the story is that you're trying to go behind this big company's back, it would make sense to not have access to much of the technology that allowed you to survive in the first game. Have it so you get immediately locked out of your PDA system and have it say something like "unauthorised user, initiating emergency mode" or something. Strip back the tech you have access to and make it so the recipes are much more scrappy and make more use of the environment. Anything more complex has to be scavenged from the camps on the ice, locking it behind progression you make on your own. It would've been something different and helped create some challenge for veterans too. Have it so Robin doesn't have immediate access to oxygen tanks so she has to first make a snorkel, then the pipes, before finally gaining access to a rebreather or something. It recreates some of that challenge of food/water/oxygen from the first game for vets by not allowing them to rely on their knowledge from the first game to help them survive. It would also help with the more story-focus the game is going for by really putting you in Robin's shoes (or flippers, I guess) I haven't finished the video, so maybe you already had a similar or better idea, but that's just my thoughts!

One thing I'll say mildly in their defense, I don't think it was a mistake to want to make something, building off of Subnautica, but with a different vibe and a different goal, rather than just, "The same thing, but more, and maybe better," I think that's understandable. But the devil is in the details, as they say, and the devil was in there fuckin' shit up real good, apparently. Beyond that--I haven't actually played the game myself, because if I was going to I'd want to finish the original first, and the original *gets* to me *real* bad even knowing almost everything about it already... but I kinda wasn't that interested after watching other people play through it anyway. I wouldn't feel comfortable commenting on a lot of the elements without getting my hands on it myself, but the dialogue, *thank* you. I remember watching IGP keep playing through different builds and he'd listen to the dialogue and get all excited turning ideas around in his head and would keep trying to agree with Al-An and I'm over here like, "...Bruh, all of this is cringe and dumb; they are both dumb and cringe, and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this is plastic kiddie pool levels of deep, my guy." Frustrating. 😶

It honestly feels like the developers were ashamed of the first game being considered a semi horror and did everything they could to remove that in Below Zero. The overly bright areas, the non-scary creatures and Leviathans, the waypoints and maps to every point of interest, the voiced dialogue... it reeks of the devs trying to wash away the feeling of horror.

I cant believe one single person gave below zero a positive review. DID YOU PEOPLE HIT YOUR HEADS? WE ALREADY PLAYED THIS ALREADY..AND THIS ONES WAY SMALLER

Soemething called the fucking "leviathin trench" sounds so god damn cool

Something that I hate about below zero is that Riley isn't mentioned once. I wish there was at least something that mentioned him and his fate after coming back to Earth. I loved Riley way more than Robin even though Riley didn't talk I still felt like he had a better personality than she did with the little animations that he did, like how he would swing the knife around after he made it or grabbed his hand with the propulsion cannon. I wanted to know what happened to him after he got back, but nothing was mentioned, which was one of my biggest disappointments with below zero.

So glad this video is back up. Easily the best critique of such a disappointing game. You perfectly summed up all my thoughts. Love the way you broke down the plot beat by beat because it is truly fucking insane how little sense it makes, especially the Sam plot (which ends up literally being a side quest). You missed my favorite part though. At the beginning Robin says some shit like, “Alterra claims Sam got her coworker and herself killed in an explosion due to her own negligence. There’s no way, that’s not something Sam sould do!” …And then it turns out that, no, that’s actually literally exactly what fuckin happened. I genuinely hope the developers see this because it really is a thoughtful and fair critique. Also that Will Sasso edit was so unexpected and perfect. Classic PF Changs clip

I just finished the game and yeah I agree with all of this. Though I would add that one thing that really annoyed me was the fact that you often had to explore a certain biome in order to get the resources you needed to just explore that same biome better... like for example you have to dive down to like 150 meters without a rebreather in twisty bridges to get the rebreather that lets you comfortably dive to 150+ meters. Then with the crystal caves or even all the way to the fabricator caverns you go down the first time to get Kyanite crystals and Nickel just so you can run back to your base make the depth modules for the pawn suit/sea truck and the only reason for those upgrades to exist at all is so you can more easily explore the crystal caves and fabricator caverns. So it just felt like there wasn't really a point for those upgrades to exist at all knowing what I know now I honestly never would have even bothered with them and the only reason I did in the first place is that I was expecting there to be a deeper biome somewhere but there wasn't. In the first game you'd often hit some sort of barrier to your progress and then need to explore some other area to get the resources and/or crafting schematics needed to progress which would then give access to some other area and so there was some of that back and forth but it felt at lot more natural and rewarding because when you got to those barriers the solution wasn't to just brute force your way past that barrier just to make getting past that barrier easier next time. Also I did the kinda the opposite thing that you did. I found Phi Robotics and the spy penglin blueprint then built it and explored the rest of the the surrounding area found the cure just before finding the frozen leviathan and cured the infection all before I followed Marguerit so the entire mystery and objective was solved before I even saw half of the story with Sam and because I did it in reverse order I was expecting to find that Altera actually either killed or kidnapped Sam and just staged the accident to cover their tracks and then just eventually found out that nope I just stumbled into the big reveal before the whole rest of the story... it was pretty anti-climatic to say the least. I was also incredibly disappointed with the small map size. I intentionally did not build a large base early on because I went in thinking of it more like the original subnautica and knew I didn't want to have to rebuilt a large base so I wanted to find a good and central spot to build before I committed the resources and that plan back fired because I got to lilypads and figured "this must be close to the center" assuming the map was going to be about the same size as the original and it was fairly deep water but not too deep and had access to some deeper biomes near by so I figured that would have been about the central area of the map and then I explored a bit more and found that no that wasn't a deeper biome I found earlier that was the edge of the map... :( so I deconstructed a lot of what I had built and rebuilt over the top of Koppa mining instead.

awesome video! you described the game quite well and I like your takes on solutions. Didnt know about the cut content either like damn that frozen dragon wouldve been cool, and less squid sharks lmao

giving my own little anecdote about gameplay being more important than story, I recently played Bulletstorm and got a prime example of "when the story is kinda shit but the game's so fun you don't care." i recommend playing it, but TL;DR the game's got a very basic "action movie" plot - going from major setpiece to major setpiece - while also having a classic revenge plot as a background narrative. The story itself is fine, but it's one of those games where you could entirely remove and not notice a major difference (aside from the final bits of the game - that sequence does kinda require story context to make the payoff even more worth it). can't think of a way to tie this into subnautica, but i got reminded of it at that section. Kinda sat down after finishing the game and mentally went through the story again before going "damn, i don't remember jackshit lmao" - and i have a pretty good memory. The gameplay was just so good that i really didn't care about the story, even though it wasn't bad.

Why this has only ~20k views, this is the best critique on this game I watched

In your own story concept, you forgot that the Degasi crashed 10 years before Aurora, and BZ takes place two years after the first game. So Marguerit has lived in Sector Zero for probably the decade, there's no way she could've floated to Sector Zero during Alterra's research and when Sam was there.