Subnautica Below Zero Review: A Fragile Peace

The Chelicerate Leviathan is not only spooky, I bet the market price is absurd!

The water is blue. Too blue. Something is rippling through it, an indistinguishable sleek- a loud roar shakes the Seatruck submarine. I swivel the sub around it. A cryptosuchus (think a black alligator with flippers) paddles around nearby. I roll my eyes. Those things are so annoying. I thought it was a Chelicerate (big scary thing in the title picture). Not this time. I turn the sub back towards my destination and the blue water of the West Artic.

Cryptosuchuses are loud and very cranky. But they aren’t a real threat. The things that eat them on the other hand…

The East Artic is sparse and empty. Glow whales sing and dive gently about 50 meters below the surface. All types of alien fish swim around my sub as it plows through the frigid waters of Sector Zero. Artic Rays and Pinnacarids (both are basically stingray-type creatures) zip around below and above me. I don’t know what I’m looking for. It’s. hard to find anything out here, which makes everything you find all the more important. Any signs of human life could yield more plot, new blueprints (so I can build new things) and most importantly loot.

A robotic voice informs me that my hydration levels are low. I didn’t bring any water. I climb out of my submarine and grab a few passing fish. Inside the safety of my Seatruck I cook the fish, the residual water being enough to keep me hydrated, at least until I can get back to base. I can venture on, for now. I push forward, past floating glaciers and colonies of fish. I’m the alien here. This is Planet 4546B. Above me rain patters on the surface. I continue my journey.

The rain stops. I surface, to get a grasp on my surroundings. There’s just…nothing in front of me. Intrigued, I steer my sub forward, looking for land. The ocean has gone quiet and I shine my lights at the bottom. But there is no bottom. It’s gone. The water has changed. A darker eerie shade of blue. The robotic voice tells me I’m hungry, even though I just ate. Annoyed, I hop out of my submarine and look for a quick fish to nab. But there’s no fish in sight.

What the hell is this, I think to myself. I descend, looking for a bottom or a fish or some landmark. Then I hear it.

“Entering ecological deadzone. Adding report to database.”

A metallic crunch. The tracker on my submarine goes dark. I look up and see-

Void Chelicerate’s live on the edge of the map. Don’t go to the edge of the map.

That. I see that for a second and then it eat me. I scream like I had just seen a snake or something IRL and run out of the room, shaking and crying. What the fuck was that. Why would someone do this to me? I paid money for this experience. After a stiff dose of beta blockers and maybe a Xanax I return to my game. I have respawned in my home base, a research outpost that is basically just a 12x12 room. This is Subnautica Below Zero.

My sub was destroyed by my little adventure in the Void but I build a new one and soon am exploring the Artic waters once again. I get out to harvest some kelp and a sea monkey brings me a piece of titanium, which I actually needed. I pick it up and the sea monkey chirps joyfully. Climbing on top of an ice sheet, I am greeted by penglings, which are baby pengwings, which are basically alien penguins. They ignore me, until I return with a fish for them to eat, at which point I am the most popular man on 4546B. It’s a cute moment, totally removed from the nightmare I experienced 20 minutes prior. This is also Subnautica Below Zero.

Hello friends.

Subnautica Below Zero is a very different game environment than Subnautica. In the original game you are prey being hunted, an aberration in an ecosystem you don’t belong in. In Below Zero things feel far more harmonious and you are actually a part of this dynamic and complex ecosystem. You can barter (sort of) with the sea monkeys, feed the peng wings, climb inside of Ventgardens…you are truly one with the world of Sector Zero like you were not in the Crater from the first game. It’s a much more peaceful, relaxing experience.

That’s not to say there’s not a catch and a few snags along the way. The major, MAJOR, thing in Subnautica Below Zero is that it’s smaller and shallower, making horizontal travel a much more perilous affair. Travel too far in one direction and you’ll end up in the Void, where you will die the same horrible death I did at the beginning of this article. This isn’t a constant concern, but it is definitely a nagging fear.

The world of Subnautica Below Zero is much smaller than Subnautica and it feels more cozy as a result. Credit to Unknown Worlds (the devs), the world may be smaller, but overall it’s just as chocked full of things to find and fauna to interact with. There’s a good many little side quests and hidden areas and a player could spend potentially hundreds of hours here if they get into the game’s tight building mechanics. I’ve been working on a void base (yes that is not a great idea) and I have to admit, even though I usually don’t get into base building and things like that, the systems they have in this game are pretty cool.

The tight corridors of the Deep Twisty Bridges are infested with Spiky Traps and are also home to a Squidshark. Fun.

The design philosophy of Below Zero is claustrophobic, with lots of cramped spaces and nooks and crannies, a change from the wide open spaces and deep waters of the original. You're going to find yourself in a lot more cave systems, relying on the newly introduced oxygen plants. Many of these caves contain important loot and useful tool. There are ship wrecks too that are extremely dangerous to explore because of the complex outlays and lack of oxygen. To survive in Sector Zero you’re going to have to learn to deal with tight corners.

One thing Below Zero has that is new is land. A lot of land. In Subnautica, you could explore two islands, the Floating Island (it floats,lots of land) and the Mountain Island (more interesting, big mountain, alien facility). But neither of these sections are that expansive and they don’t have much new life, except for those stupid, stupid land crab creatures that I despise. Below Zero has a few rather large land biomes with lots to do, including secret facilities, new plants, important blue prints and minerals and most importantly, annoying new creatures.

Like many, I do not love the land portions of the game. The temperature mechanic can be a pain and hinders exploration even though I get why it exists. Getting to most of these places is annoying. I do like the Snow Stalker creatures but they’re too prominent to be that aggressive and also heavily hinder exploration in some cases. Their cubs are cute though.

There is land Leviathan, the Ice Worm, that is required to get past to beat the game and honestly it’s a miserable experience. The biome it’s in, The Artic Spires, is sparse, with the exception of some Snow Stalkers and mineral deposits. You’re supposed to use a new land vehicle, the Snowfox for this segment but it’s clunky, fragile and feels kind of…cheap.

Working as intended.

I enjoyed the variety the land portions added in small doses but the late game stretch where you have to spend large amounts of time there was a slog. The Ice Worm Leviathan is a nice addition overall but interacting with it really sucks and I wish it had some underwater capabilities. All it does is burrow in a circular movement pattern inside the ground and pop up beneath you. When it hits you it knocks you off your Snowfox. hurting you and damaging you Snowfox, forcing you to repair it because you really don’t want to have to build a new one. When I finally got the story items from this area I was relieved because it meant I would never have to go back there again.

The plot of Subnautica Below Zero leaves a little bit to be desired which is unfortunate since it’s supposed to be a more story driven title and actually has voiced characters. You’re playing as Robin Ayou, a scientist who intentionally crash lands on Planet 4546B to investigate the death of her sister Sam, who is also a scientist. While out in the world trying to survive she ends up picking up an alien distress signal and upon investigating it, she discovers AL-AN, an alien consciousness who ends integrating with her consciousness. This gives Robin someone to talk to and becomes the primary vehicle to move the story from Point A to Point B, as getting AL-AN removed from Robin’s mind is basically the goal of the game.

The storytelling truthfully does leave a little to be desired. You can plausibly end the game without finding out what happened to your sister and without contacting another human. You can literally leave the planet you chose to crash land on without even doing the thing you came to do. I don’t love that. Now there is an additional sidequest related to the Khaara bacteria that you can do and I liked the decision to make that one optional. Those are the kind of choices that make the game more fulfilling, as opposed to the optional nature of the sister questline which undermines the premise. I felt like the story worked but I missed the less is more approach of the first game which I felt fit the series better. Having voice protagonists took away from the feeling of isolation that helped make the first game so compelling.

The Shadow Leviathan is one of the coolest creatures in the entire game, which makes it a shame it is reserved for a small area of the game you’re unlikely to routinely visit.

Regardless of its flaws, Subnautica Below Zero is a proof of concept for the franchise. This game is different, it may not give the fans of the original exactly what they wanted, but the game still feels like Subnautica and it still is a joy to play. Even though I enjoyed the aesthetic and some of the design choices of the first game more I felt like Below Zero was an extremely strong game and that the choices it made were well executed from a gameplay perspective. Though the game was originally conceived as a DLC I do think it successfully makes the leap from expansion to full game. There’s certainly enough content and gameplay to justify the price. For $30 I put about 60 hours in and I’m still far from done building my base.

There truly is a beauty to the game, a sense of peace. It may not be as tense as the first game but it’s just as easy to get absorbed and before you know it, you’ve spent hours harvesting minerals, trying to kill that pesky Squidshark in the Deep Twisty Bridges or lumbering around in the Seatruck. You may even decide to hang out on the game’s many land areas. There’s a lot to do in Below Zero and it gives the player a lot of freedom to do so.

If you like Subnautica you will like this game but if you absolutely loved the first one, you probably won’t love this one the same way. But the game is perfect at doing what it does well. It’s a warm, cozy and vibey game that feels like you want it to feel and scratches that itch you might have had for underwater survival. The creatures range from super cute to super scary, the locations are varied and teeming with life, the colors are vibrant and eye catching. The story can be quite engaging if you put the whole thing together and the characters will grow on you. In an era where a lot franchises end up taking a miss step with a rushed or underbaked sequel, Subnautica Below Zero confidently puts its best foot forward.