So, I'd like to start off by introducing my bias for the survival-crafting genre. This is my favorite genre - your Minecrafts, Empyrions, Space Engineers, even your Don't Starves and Terrarias. This is a genre that I love and adore. The below is an in-depth, but spoiler-free, review.

And this is by far the best example of strong single-player content that I've ever seen in the genre. It's also, in my book, the single prettiest example of the genre, including stand-out titles like ARK: Survival Evolved. However, be warned: there are bugs, and the bugs can yank you out of the experience and, if you're not willing to use the debug console to recover from a bug, they might cost you hours of progress. But if you can overcome that, you're in for a breathtaking experience that's sculpted without feeling directed, experimental and exploratory yet - mostly - polished, and ultimately an amazing journey of discovery, building, and mastery of one's environment;

Subnautica is set in the far future - we're talking space travel, building-construction guns, and PDA that can perform advanced assesment of the properties of a geome as soon as it reaches it. The game opens with you, a silent protagonist, jumping into a life pod as your starship is crashing onto a water planet, and it tells the tale of your escape from this planet - including learning about the history of this planet and overcoming some major, unexpected obstacles and solving mysteries aged from an hour to a decade to a millenium.

95% of the game takes place under water, and over the course of the game, you'll build aquatic bases, handheld propulsion devices, and vehicles both small and large. Construction entails finding and collecting nodes of resources, bringing them to the appropriate crafting station - usually but not always either the handheld, portable building-construction gun, or an item crafitng station attached to a base - and watching as the doohickeys work their magic.

But first, you'll need to find the appropriate crafting recipe, which involves either reading a data disc found in a piece of ship wreckage, or scanning an intact or damaged example of that item, also generally in a ship wreckage. Some wreckages are easier to explore than others, as they might require no more than your hands and eyes to find everything but they may also pose additional challenges that may require additional tools to overcome. And you always have to keep an eye on your oxygen, food, and water!

And after you've found the recipes, you will then need to find the materials to construct them. Materials are usually found in small nodes concentrated in a localized area - and for most materials there are many, many such areas scattered in the rougly-2km-by-2km area. At its deepest the game also reaches a depth of around 2km, but most of it is much shallower than that. At first you'll find yourself constrained to the first hundred meters or so, but as you progress you'll overcome the obstacles that stop you from going deeper.

And these areas that you're exploring are gorgeous! Beautfiully-rendered, mysterious and alien undersea-scapes, some of which are lit up only by whatever lights you bring to them, and some of which are lightened by spectularly bioluminescent flora and fauna. The sea life variety is in the dozens, and everything looks very original and comes with an encyclopedia entry. And you'll want to interact with quite a bit of it before your adventure is complete.

There is a distinct sense of progression in the game. As you unlock technologies, you'll gain access to new sources of materials or technologies, which can be used to create tools to overcome obstacles, opening the path to more technologies or materials. All the way, you'll be learning about some of the mysteries that this world hides. Eventually you'll have better tools for gathering resources, able to access richer nodes, and your life in general will be much less of a struggle to survive and much more of a strident drive toward prosperity - of a sort, at least as long as you remain marooned on this planet.

Incidentally, at times, the PDA personality reminds me of a less-evil GladOS. Snarky and sarcastic, but never rooting against you or actively disrespecting you, and certainly never sabotaging you.

It's also worth mentioning that this isn't a very violent game. There are enemies, but they're generally predators, not evil beings. Everything that attacks you has a primal motivation for attacking you. And you never get an offensive gun. The best weapon by the end of the game - spoiler alert here - is a knife. Your encounters with hostile creatures are usually more about avoiding them or driving them off than killing them. You do kill creatures - our survivor has to eat after all! - but you never wind up feeling like a grizzled war veteran, and the violence is never cheapened.

There are bugs, though. I've fallen through the geometry several times - a few times while driving a vehicle, which means the loss of the vehicle if I'm not able to clip back through the geomery or load a recent save. And since there's only one save slot per campaign, I'm less likely than I might otherwise be to save as frequently as I might need. The debug commands cannot be underestimated; while they can't move your vehicle, they can give you a new one and replace the resources you spent on it or had sitting in its inventory.

I will also say that this game can be trying on the patience if you're not a very good explorer and just want to go from one objective to the next. If that's the kind of player that you are - and I'm closer to that description than I sometimes care to admit - then I'd heartily recommend having the wiki open the entire time. There were definitely moments where I would probably have quit in frustration for not being able to find something if it weren't for the wiki.

If those doesn't sound like deal-breaking problems to you, I'd heartily recommend this game to anyone who wants something different - a survival-crafting game with sculpted single-player content and a satifying sense of progression, a beautiful experience under the waves, an experience that is truly like none other, or if you are just looking for a great way to kill 90 or so hours. Subnautica is worth your time and money,

So, I'd like to start off by introducing my bias for the survival-crafting genre. This is my favorite genre - your Minecrafts, Empyrions, Space Engineers, even your Don't Starves and Terrarias. This is a genre that I love and adore. The below is an in-depth, but spoiler-free, review. And this is by far the best example of strong single-player content that I've ever seen in the genre. It's also, in my book, the single prettiest example of the genre, including stand-out titles like ARK: Survival Evolved. However, be warned: there are bugs, and the bugs can yank you out of the experience and, if you're not willing to use the debug console to recover from a bug, they might cost you hours of progress. But if you can overcome that, you're in for a breathtaking experience that's sculpted without feeling directed, experimental and exploratory yet - mostly - polished, and ultimately an amazing journey of discovery, building, and mastery of one's environment; Subnautica is set in the far future - we're talking space travel, building-construction guns, and PDA that can perform advanced assesment of the properties of a geome as soon as it reaches it. The game opens with you, a silent protagonist, jumping into a life pod as your starship is crashing onto a water planet, and it tells the tale of your escape from this planet - including learning about the history of this planet and overcoming some major, unexpected obstacles and solving mysteries aged from an hour to a decade to a millenium. 95% of the game takes place under water, and over the course of the game, you'll build aquatic bases, handheld propulsion devices, and vehicles both small and large. Construction entails finding and collecting nodes of resources, bringing them to the appropriate crafting station - usually but not always either the handheld, portable building-construction gun, or an item crafitng station attached to a base - and watching as the doohickeys work their magic. But first, you'll need to find the appropriate crafting recipe, which involves either reading a data disc found in a piece of ship wreckage, or scanning an intact or damaged example of that item, also generally in a ship wreckage. Some wreckages are easier to explore than others, as they might require no more than your hands and eyes to find everything but they may also pose additional challenges that may require additional tools to overcome. And you always have to keep an eye on your oxygen, food, and water! And after you've found the recipes, you will then need to find the materials to construct them. Materials are usually found in small nodes concentrated in a localized area - and for most materials there are many, many such areas scattered in the rougly-2km-by-2km area. At its deepest the game also reaches a depth of around 2km, but most of it is much shallower than that. At first you'll find yourself constrained to the first hundred meters or so, but as you progress you'll overcome the obstacles that stop you from going deeper. And these areas that you're exploring are gorgeous! Beautfiully-rendered, mysterious and alien undersea-scapes, some of which are lit up only by whatever lights you bring to them, and some of which are lightened by spectularly bioluminescent flora and fauna. The sea life variety is in the dozens, and everything looks very original and comes with an encyclopedia entry. And you'll want to interact with quite a bit of it before your adventure is complete. There is a distinct sense of progression in the game. As you unlock technologies, you'll gain access to new sources of materials or technologies, which can be used to create tools to overcome obstacles, opening the path to more technologies or materials. All the way, you'll be learning about some of the mysteries that this world hides. Eventually you'll have better tools for gathering resources, able to access richer nodes, and your life in general will be much less of a struggle to survive and much more of a strident drive toward prosperity - of a sort, at least as long as you remain marooned on this planet. Incidentally, at times, the PDA personality reminds me of a less-evil GladOS. Snarky and sarcastic, but never rooting against you or actively disrespecting you, and certainly never sabotaging you. It's also worth mentioning that this isn't a very violent game. There are enemies, but they're generally predators, not evil beings. Everything that attacks you has a primal motivation for attacking you. And you never get an offensive gun. The best weapon by the end of the game - spoiler alert here - is a knife. Your encounters with hostile creatures are usually more about avoiding them or driving them off than killing them. You do kill creatures - our survivor has to eat after all! - but you never wind up feeling like a grizzled war veteran, and the violence is never cheapened. There are bugs, though. I've fallen through the geometry several times - a few times while driving a vehicle, which means the loss of the vehicle if I'm not able to clip back through the geomery or load a recent save. And since there's only one save slot per campaign, I'm less likely than I might otherwise be to save as frequently as I might need. The debug commands cannot be underestimated; while they can't move your vehicle, they can give you a new one and replace the resources you spent on it or had sitting in its inventory. I will also say that this game can be trying on the patience if you're not a very good explorer and just want to go from one objective to the next. If that's the kind of player that you are - and I'm closer to that description than I sometimes care to admit - then I'd heartily recommend having the wiki open the entire time. There were definitely moments where I would probably have quit in frustration for not being able to find something if it weren't for the wiki. If those doesn't sound like deal-breaking problems to you, I'd heartily recommend this game to anyone who wants something different - a survival-crafting game with sculpted single-player content and a satifying sense of progression, a beautiful experience under the waves, an experience that is truly like none other, or if you are just looking for a great way to kill 90 or so hours. Subnautica is worth your time and money,