Subnautica: Below Zero is a good game. "But why do so many people who enjoyed the original also enjoy hating Below Zero?" You may ask. Because there's a certain expectation with a new game in a series to follow things exactly as they are done in the previous games of the series. Innovation tends to be punished when a developer deviates from an original formula. I think BZ is better than Subnautica in many ways, but that's just my opinion. I'll try to outline why I think that way though. The first is obviously narrative. Subnautica had little to no story, with only a silent protagonist and drop pod messages probing you to explore deeper to uncover what happened. That's fine, the focus of the games is different (and this is why I think so many people hate BZ, but I'll explain that in a bit). While the original focused more on exploration and the fear of the unknown, the sequel wants to tell a story within the world that was built in Subnautica. The voice actors are good, the story is decently written (imo), and the way it unfolds is similar to the original in that you will receive clues at certain intervals (this time from a character that the MC interacts with instead of because of dead drop pod messages). Overall the story is better (imo), and it's given life with just a few characters. A few of the people (not all of them) I've seen complain about the story generally seemed to hate the characters as people rather than giving any legitimate complaints about story. It boils down to insults including vague things like "boring" and "annoying", then going to the weird like "too many women" or "too g@y" (Yeah, some people actually wanted to make those complaints). It's fine not to like the characters and judge the game based on that, everyone is entitled to their opinions (and this is just mine). Just know that there are certain biases tainting those opinions (everyone has biases, including me). The second is the world. Subnautica was about the fear of the unknown, unexplored areas, and mysterious dangers. The world was vast, sometimes dark, and often incredibly scary. This worked well when you first play the game, but after that it's incredibly predictable. On a second play through of the game I found myself jumping out of vehicles and knifing leviathans until they died after I stunned them. You can do this in BZ too, it's just not as interesting to do so because the world is more interesting than the fear (imo). You see, with the original the biomes eventually became large open spaces (for a specific reason that I'll get into next) that didn't hold much more than a few resources and one or two leviathans to keep you away from the borders. In BZ each biome has lots of interesting creatures, plants, and resources. Things are more abundant and the world feels alive. I always thought it was a little weird in the first game that a MASSIVE space conglomerate like Alterra came to a planet to strip mine it while I'm struggling to find enough resources to build a SINGLE base under water. The story in Subnautica tried to hand wave that away, but it was only vaguely successful in doing so. The original felt too *dead* to me for the story it wanted to tell. BZ is tightly packed with tidbits of info everywhere, and the environments are better at telling that story too (imo). Finally there's the vehicles. I don't know if people are romanticizing the Seamoth and the Cyclops from the first game but this is where I adamantly disagree with a lot of people who don't like BZ. The Seamoth, while useful in the original, actually only had one purpose: faster exploration. Well, two if you count "getting away from leviathans" as another. Because aside from arriving somewhere quicker without running out of oxygen, it was essentially useless. In the beginning bumping into a small fish could cause you to lose 10 percent of your hull, never mind bumping into a spire or getting grabbed by a leviathan. I found myself repairing my Seamoth more than actually travelling in my first play through until I found the hull upgrade. Which is just a waste of an upgrade slot honestly. The Cyclops... Oh, the Cyclops. An unwieldy and even more annoying "vehicle." The open and dead spaces I mentioned earlier were probably meant to allow you to traverse them using the Cyclops... Because if it wasn't as open it would be an even bigger nightmare to maneuver that thing than it already was. Not to mention that if you're using the cyclops it's to get somewhere really dangerous... but you'll have to be jumping out to knock off fish hiding on the hull and sucking your power or to repair the Cyclops hull... or even putting out fires if it's your first time piloting it without a specific upgrade. Less fun, more micromanaging, much more annoying. The Sea-Truck is a good cross between the Seamoth and the Cyclops. You have more speed if you detach the modules, a sturdier hull than the Seamoth, more maneuverability than the Cyclops (which also works better in the tighter and more focused environments), and finally, it's not annoying to drive it. Below Zero isn't trying to be Subnautica 1.5, which is what I see a lot of people wanting. It would be impossible to reclaim that success, especially with how Subnautica relied on the fear of the unknown. I think the developers understood that many second time players were going to find it predictable thanks to how things worked in Subnautica so they wouldn't be as afraid as they were in the first game. People probably would have complained about that as well, and I think they knew that. It's a "d**ned if you do, d**ned if you don't" scenario honestly. If you think a game that's set in the same world as Subnautica but *isn't* exactly like Subnautica doesn't appeal to you, then the first game still exists. You can definitely replay that, and it would probably make you happier than this game. To someone looking for something fun and a little different than the original, well, dive right in, the water's warm.
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