Almost entirely rides on the coattails of the first game, but even that is enough for a great experience. You can never even play Subnautica for the second time to the full effect, so making it again is a doomed undertaking.
Below Zero offers a lot of QOL upgrades, bug fixes, and performance improvements that make it a nice way of revisiting the glory of Subnautica in a more compact, more finely tuned package. Just as with the first game, I got completely obsessed and played for up to 6 hours a day, so shorter length was a bit of blessing for my productivity.
I was a bit disappointed that they tuned the horror down - some unfortunate creature design decisions (Leviathan class was massacred in this game) and even just the amount of dangerous encounters is to blame.
Nothing will ever top the intergalactic environmental disaster mystery of the first game, but it's cool that they tried to tell a more traditional story through the medium of Subnautica. Robin's journey was engaging, but there was some turmoil in writers' team and definitely shows - the story is confusing and feels unfinished, and the main quest of the game ends being a completely unrelated thing.
The biggest miss of the game is definitely the land sections. They are super long and boring, a pain in the ass to navigate, and I hated the feel of the dedicated land vehicle. I ended up just hoofing through all of these massive locations in the Prawn, and don't want to ever revisit them.
Subnautica is one of my top 5 games of all time, so needless to say I will buy any ticket to 4546B on offer in a blink of an eye. Below Zero was mostly good for reminding me of how much I love Subnautica, but that is absolutely good enough.
Below Zero offers a lot of QOL upgrades, bug fixes, and performance improvements that make it a nice way of revisiting the glory of Subnautica in a more compact, more finely tuned package. Just as with the first game, I got completely obsessed and played for up to 6 hours a day, so shorter length was a bit of blessing for my productivity.
I was a bit disappointed that they tuned the horror down - some unfortunate creature design decisions (Leviathan class was massacred in this game) and even just the amount of dangerous encounters is to blame.
Nothing will ever top the intergalactic environmental disaster mystery of the first game, but it's cool that they tried to tell a more traditional story through the medium of Subnautica. Robin's journey was engaging, but there was some turmoil in writers' team and definitely shows - the story is confusing and feels unfinished, and the main quest of the game ends being a completely unrelated thing.
The biggest miss of the game is definitely the land sections. They are super long and boring, a pain in the ass to navigate, and I hated the feel of the dedicated land vehicle. I ended up just hoofing through all of these massive locations in the Prawn, and don't want to ever revisit them.
Subnautica is one of my top 5 games of all time, so needless to say I will buy any ticket to 4546B on offer in a blink of an eye. Below Zero was mostly good for reminding me of how much I love Subnautica, but that is absolutely good enough.