Trying Flickr for photo posting.
Picked up Subnautica last day of the Steam sale.
On my third re-start and have about 5 hours into the game. First time i died of dehydration.....looked all over for common coral...didn't know you needed a knife to harvest it. Second time i had to re-start was due to bugged storage containers. Lost all my good stuff, including some alien artifacts and wasn't sure they are a re-spawn item and they seemed important. The buildable storage containers are bugged, they disappear, move and i think there supposed to float, but they don't. TIP-keep your important stuff in your pod's storage, keep the common resources in the floating ones. It's an alpha so expect to run into things like this.
On to the third re-start.
Here's my thoughts on the game so far. A pretty fantastic underwater world to explore with a lot of content already in the game. There are brief FPS drops but for me there not long or consistent, I have everything maxed out. Its got your basic survival formula, food, water......shelter is already taken care of[so far], water appears to be the early choke point mainly due to the salt resource but there are other ways to get water which i wont spoil. Going to try not to give too much away as figuring things out is a big part of the fun in these type games. Resource management due to storage is a big issue,the game needs stacking. Your resource management needs to be focused, when i first played i grabbed everything i could which is what you do in most survival games but really isn't needed here, unless its salt, grab all you can. Resource gathering isn't really to grindy right now, in fact the progression might be to fast. Third re-start inside an hour i had a knife, scanner, repair tool, light, fins, radiation suit,had repaired my pod,extra batteries, plenty of water[for the moment] and food, food is not an issue in this game as long as you can click fast. There's always a certain amount of grinding in survival games due to resource gathering and i imagine its a hard thing to balance. The resource grinding isn't bad in this game once you know what to look for and where, besides the world is so well done its not a chore to go gathering, whether that keeps up with more play time we'll see. The game actually has a story, so far so good, i want to keep finding out more and that's a good sign. As far as i can tell I've visited 3 different area's, no loading screens so far so i cant be sure. I haven't done any base building yet and probably wont until i explore a great deal more and it doesn't seem to be required immediately. Your limited by your equipment on how deep you can go, i had a re-breather but not sure at what depth that kicks in and i don't want to be caught to deep when running out of air. Looking forward to see what's in store for me when i go deep diving. There are other things i don't want to spoil and people should enjoy finding those on their own, especially story elements. Most of the stuff in game is laid out so its not hard to figure out what your supposed to do or how things connect.
I have a few of these type games, 7DTD, Subsistance, Empyrion, Project Zomboid, PAMELA, all EA survival crafting games and the only one i wouldn't recommend right now is Subsistance, not because its a bad game but i would recommend waiting until more content is added. I got Subnautica for $10 during the sale and have no trouble recommending it if you like crafting/survival games. The Devs seem to update regularly and there is enough content here to put many hours in.
My ship,not getting off the planet this way
Nice shock wave effect. Wasn't sure i was at minimum safe distance.
You never forget the first time something swims up and bites you in the ass. Don't ask about the missile fish, you can find that out for your self. TIP..make fins....like now
Don't have the equipment yet to stay down there to long.
Some more wildlife, its up to you to figure out what's dangerous and what's not...part of the mystery of the game.
Exploring at night is a whole different ball game, apparently some things are only out during the day or night...unconfirmed.....TIP..build a light
This is just a teaser which i wont explain.
Game has atmosphere in spades, the underwater vibe is strong and the sound effects are very well done, especially if you like psycho whale songs with ominous under tones. Just remember ..WATCH YOUR ASS