SUBNAUTICA

Andy: I don’t get on with a lot of survival games because, outside of staying alive, there isn’t much to do. But Subnautica’s beautiful, mysterious alien ocean is absolutely heaving with interesting, hand-crafted details to discover. When you find a strange island or a wrecked ship, you know there’ll be an interesting story attached to it, and maybe something that can be scavenged to help you out. And while many survival sims force you to endure hours of tedious busywork, the material requirements for building things in Subnautica are refreshingly generous, letting you actually get on with enjoying the game. Pip: Subnautica is the only survival game I’ve ever loved. The underwater setting is absolutely gorgeous, and I wanted to see what was in every cave. Each new biome was a source of utter delight, as well as tension, especially when I was in the depths of the ocean, battling oxygen limitations and deep sea pressure (and terrifying creatures) in my quest for resources.

As well as the intriguing story, there is plenty of scope for setting your own tasks. Mine included setting up a multistorey base on the lip of a thermal vent for maximum Bond villainy, and immediately undermining that aesthetic by curating a lovely underwater garden just outside it. Steven: I’m with Andy on this one: Survival games bore me to tears. But Subnautica succeeds on the sheer splendor (and terror) of its open sea. I’ve never felt such a palpable sense of dread as when I would venture into some uncharted part of the ocean where any number of aquatic horrors could get me. My first encounter with a Leviathan left me so shaken I put down the game for days, but the thing that kept me coming back was the story.

Subnautica displays a rare feat of storytelling in the way pivotal plot moments happen completely independent of your involvement in them. Each of us had a wildly different perspective on an early plot beat, and that wouldn’t have happened if Subnautica was the kind of game that had to wrest control away from the player to make sure they noticed every detail. Like many of its ocean creatures, Subnautica is a game that feels like it’s indifferent to me as the player, and that makes me all the more interested in puzzling its story out. Pip: Indifference is actually a really good way of putting it. I played a lot of Subnautica in super Early Access, and was worried that adding the story in would dramatically change the feel of the game. By not rigidly controlling how you receive that story, Subnautica manages to make the player relevant to the world without spoiling the sense that you’re stranded in an ocean which both dwarfs you, and is entirely indifferent to your survival.

Subnautica is the only survival game I’ve ever loved