Here’s an ambitious indie game from Unknown Worlds Entertainment. It splashes you down and strands you on a remote, water-based planet. You must survive!

Subnautica

Okay, if you’re new to this genre then it’s all about survival. Hence, “survival genre”. *smug grin*

In an open-world environment, you have to make best of what you’ve got and battle from day to day.

Subnautica differs from the likes of ZombiU and Frostpunk as it’s set in deep space. And there’s a lot of water.

In the 22^nd century and humans are in deep space to colonise star system. Your spaceship goes down in a hellish fireball.

And now you’re stranded on the 4546B. You’re the only survivor, so it’s up to you to check the wreckage and attempt to get by from day to day.

Right… it’s certainly one of those games you really need some tips about before diving on in. Yeah? So we nabbed this video off YouTube to cover the basics.

Unlike some indie games, Subnautica doesn’t restrict the player. If you want to do the maximum difficult setting, go for it.

But you quickly have to source food and water. That’s Survival mode. It’s a race against the clock and pretty intense—like real survival is.

However, if you want a more chilled out experience of exploration you can choose Freedom Mode, as with above but without the need to find food and water.

But probably the worst thing you can do is just start with no idea what’s going on. Very lifelike to a real survival situation like that. But you’ll die within a few of the game’s days.

Subnautica is a dramatic and beautiful game—with the crashed spaceship always off in the distance.

You can’t get too close to it due to it leaking radiation. So you must splosh, splash, and swim about the place to find resources and construct things to stay alive.

In some respects it’s like the utterly gorgeous ABZÛ. Just much more intense and violent.

There are lots of alien creatures on 4546B. And you’ll have to avoid a lot of them, or at least try to make friends with some.

What Subnautica does very well is that sense of isolation. You feel very alone on the planet.

And it’s pretty nerve-racking to jump into the waters at night and head off swimming—all manner of weird aquatic noises welling up around you.

Just what exactly lurks off in those mysterious depths?! Is this James Cameron’s The Abyss in video game form!?

Well, there’s a fair bit of that. It’s exploration. It’s survival. And there’s a load of interesting marine life to stare at.

Good? Yes! We do like the game. It’s time-consuming, so not for anyone after a short burst of fun. But put the effort in for some splishy sploshy aquatic antics. Yeah?