Subnautica won't work for everyone. I think this is the one game that stresses how important having a certain niche as an audience is. Tiresome, tedious survival busywork and backtracking turn into nightmarish romps through the alien and the unknown as you plunge deeper into the abyss... but this relies on something, doesn't it? If someone playing Subnautica doesn't have thalassophobia (and it's not like it's marketed as a horror game) all they'll get is an extremely straightforward relaxed game with basically no real challenge to it. Hours I spent fighting against myself to go deeper into one of the richest video game ecosystems ever made just to find out what happened and get resources I needed to actually escape this planet would be meaningless without a pre-existing sense of horror, because Subnautica isn't hard. Even the funny face eels aren't programmed to wreck your shit, they're programmed to stalk and ambush at the most vulnerable moment. Perfectly serviceable and commendable AI as far as making a convincing alien creature that echolocates prey, and it's genius for creating an unending sense of pure terror without letting you get used to the games tricks, but that just goes back to the start, doesn't it? Subnautica, a game about diving into an alien ocean that doesn't market itself as horror, is a game I can only describe as "extremely fucking good" to people who really, really, really don't want to dive into an alien ocean.

This isn't addressing late-game issues like grinding, some poor storytelling choices and the actual instability of the game which all do come to actually bite it in the ass later on, especially when getting the resources for the biggest step of the journey involves going into safe, boring zones where my thalassophobia was quenched by how routine it became. In spite of all this negativity however, it's worth stating that I think if you're someone as scared shitless of both the sea and scary space things as I am, I think you could get endless worth out of Subnautica. It stands as one of the most interesting and memorable games I've ever played, where, to progress through extremely solid exploration infused with your bog-standard survival game elements, I'd have to regularly fight my fears and cartoonishly gulp as I found my way into new territory, daring not to look down. The dread and atmosphere of Subnautica is unmatched, but your enjoyment will lay squarely on if you think the premise is interesting, and if it scares you. I'm never going back to the ecological dead zone ever again personally.