Subnautica: Horror by Subversion

“The oldest and strongest emotion in mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” - H.P. Lovecraft

When you play a horror game, a typical experience is dark corners, monsters, and so on. There are so many great examples, including:

• Resident Evil
• Dead Space
• Silent Hill
• Five Nights at Freddy’s
• Amnesia

There are many, many more, but they all have more or less that dark, broody, tone.

Subnautica was, therefore, a very…interesting game. Why? Because it wasn’t the typical horror game.

Unknown Worlds Presents...

Developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Subnautica was originally announced in 2013, with strong influences from Minecraft and scuba diving, and filmmaker James Cameron’s filmography. The team at Unknown Worlds had just finished a sci-fi first-person shooter game called Natural Selection 2 and they wanted to do something different.

The game’s director, Charlie Cleveland, originally envisioned it as an exploration-based game. That’s all well and good, but if you’ve got to look around gather resources and build stuff to get to different places over and over again…well…it gets pretty boring pretty quickly. A bit of hostile fauna and some equally nasty flora certainly added to things, and the team decided to add a bit of combat into the mix as well. That…didn’t quite go according to plan.

In 2012, while the game was in development, the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, this meant that plans for Subnautica’s combat would have to be cut back significantly. So, no guns. Of course, that made things more complicated, after all, what kind of combat can you do without a gun on a potentially hostile alien world?

Anyways, the game's development went through some major overhauls and, in 2018, Subnautica released for PC, PS4, and Xbox One with releases to the Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series S and X happening in 2021 and IOS and Android releases earlier this year.

Subnautica had a positive reception with nominations for multiple awards. The game even won a few awards including:

1. Breakthrough Award for the developers - 2018 Golden Joystick Awards
2. PC Game of the Year - 2018 Golden Joystick Awards
3. Fan Favorite Indie Game - 2018 Golden Joystick Awards

How cool is that?

The Sole Survivor

A starship called the Aurora crash lands on a strange oceanic planet - identified as 4546B - after the hull suffers severe damage from a mystery blast. A few life pods make it off the ship, but it doesn't take long to realize we're the only actual survivor of the event. This point is really driven home with the discovery of damaged life pods.

It's worse when we find a strange building that subsequently shoots down a smaller ship - the Sunbeam - that comes in to rescue you - leaving you as the only human on the planet. Additionally, you quickly discover an alien bacterial infection - which sets off quarantine units to try and pick you off...how delightful.

So, now you're stuck on an alien world, infected with some sort of bacteria - which is apparently so dangerous that ships entering or exiting the planet's atmosphere are shot down - oh, and you're being hunted by some sort of alien thing that's keyed in specifically on the bacterial infection. Great.

Well, I guess I'm getting comfortable. We have to explore the planet to find a cure for the bacteria, disable the weapon thingamabob, and get out of Dodge. This is obviously easier said than done, especially considering that there are things on this planet that will actively try to EAT you!

What Works?

So, what works in Subnautica?

First off, the visuals are absolutely gorgeous! The bioluminescence in certain environments means that you're almost always able to see what you need to see. There are four modes of play:

1. Survival - Managing thirst and hunger and oxygen, and so on.
2. Freedom - No need to worry about hunger or thirst.
3. Hardcore - Survival mode, but you only get one life, and the predators are way more aggressive.
4. Creative - Nothing to manage, you can build anything you want.

The music is also great. It shifts based on each environment, and many of them are terrifying.

There's also plenty of interesting flora and fauna - unfortunately, much of the fauna wants to eat you. The fauna that isn't trying to eat you is often food and/or water. Unfortunately, the edible fauna moves so damn quick you can't keep up, and you have to catch everything by hand until you get a specific piece of equipment.

What, If Anything, Doesn't Work?

Okay, so does anything NOT work?

Well...the only thing that really stands out to me is the lack of landmarks. The planet on which you're stranded, 4546B, is an oceanic planet. This means that the bulk of what you see on the surface is...WATER. You don't have really physical landmarks to work with.

It's also really difficult to navigate while underwater as there are areas where visibility is practically zero. In addition to the navigation difficulties, the low visibility and lack of landmarks also increases the sense of fear - especially with some of the more...unfriendly wildlife.

Horror by Subversion

One of the strongest elements of Subnautica is its horror element. The environments are full of bioluminescent plants and bright colors. Additionally, the music also works to lull you into a false sense of security. That sense of security is shattered by hostile wildlife and terrain.

The space around you is, as I said before, HUGE, and the visibility is occasionally close to zero. This makes it easy enough for animals like the Reaper Leviathan (big carnivorous danger noodle) to sneak up on you. Typically, horror games have a darker tone and broodier music, so the scares are expected.

Subnautica takes your expectations and then promptly chucks them out the window.

Subnautica is a Great Experience!

Overall, Subnautica is a great experience. It's fun and interesting, and a phenomenal challenge - especially for newbies. I loved it, and I highly recommend it.