The terror of open water. The panic of caves. Always this tethering, to surface, to Seamoth, any pocket of air. I drink fields of color. I dive into the wreck. And I float here in space, this alien lightness, like I once did in pools, to hide my thick body. Dawn breaks just above, on the underside of waves, a sea-wrinkled sky.
For forty hours I hold my breath. I’m overwhelmed, transfixed, in perpetual disbelief. Water is so intimate, the way it envelops you, holds you. And tries to get in. It’s hypnotic but treacherous. And it is this exact combination of trance and threat that makes Subnautica not only exactly a videogame but the most beautiful game of the year.
How long can you last in this suffocating beauty? You’re always in danger of overextending yourself, and complete absorption will kill you. So you plan, you calculate, you hone your OCD and cultivate your humility. Because you will never dominate this ocean world. You’ll barely get a foothold. Forty hours in, it never stopped being mysterious or terrifying to me. I never tired of gazing out the viewing window I built just below the surface. I never stopped feeling vulnerable to it all.
What’s shocking is that a game this beautiful and intimidating also makes so much sense. And not just videogame sense. It has a natural logic and coherence throughout that is incredibly rare. From initial crash to progression via wreckage and fabrication to the revealed geography of its alien world, the game does not cheat. It makes a commitment to materiality and storage and all the struggles of liquid space. And it binds this vigilance to the most basic player motivation: the desire to explore. You make new tools not because the game forces you to but because each tool will help you see more. And you always want to see more. This focus is so compelling, and so completely realized, that even a few serious technical issues cannot detract from the final experience.
None of these qualities capture the quiet of this game, though. The stillness it draws out of me. Some nights I couldn’t play it because I didn’t have the calm. Driving my Cyclops submarine through Lost River and into the lowest depths required my complete preparation and attention. Extracting myself and all my materials afterwards somehow required even more. It was an ordeal, like any real journey, and it weighed on me. Floating there in the deep, so far from the surface, I would often think of the end of Jane Campion’s The Piano, one of my favorite movies. I would think of the ocean’s weird lullaby, of the buried selves floating below, of how part of me wanted to stay “in the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea.” Not death overcome, as in most videogames, but death contemplated and dwelled in. My usual voices hushed. This silence in me.
I’m back now, but like with any powerful experience, part of me is still anchored there. Still floating in the silence below. My speaking voice here on the surface, though, wants others to know: Subnautica is not only the greatest deep, deep sea game I’ve ever played, not only the greatest survival and exploration game I’ve experienced, it’s one of the greatest videogames of this generation.
For forty hours I hold my breath. I’m overwhelmed, transfixed, in perpetual disbelief. Water is so intimate, the way it envelops you, holds you. And tries to get in. It’s hypnotic but treacherous. And it is this exact combination of trance and threat that makes Subnautica not only exactly a videogame but the most beautiful game of the year.
How long can you last in this suffocating beauty? You’re always in danger of overextending yourself, and complete absorption will kill you. So you plan, you calculate, you hone your OCD and cultivate your humility. Because you will never dominate this ocean world. You’ll barely get a foothold. Forty hours in, it never stopped being mysterious or terrifying to me. I never tired of gazing out the viewing window I built just below the surface. I never stopped feeling vulnerable to it all.
What’s shocking is that a game this beautiful and intimidating also makes so much sense. And not just videogame sense. It has a natural logic and coherence throughout that is incredibly rare. From initial crash to progression via wreckage and fabrication to the revealed geography of its alien world, the game does not cheat. It makes a commitment to materiality and storage and all the struggles of liquid space. And it binds this vigilance to the most basic player motivation: the desire to explore. You make new tools not because the game forces you to but because each tool will help you see more. And you always want to see more. This focus is so compelling, and so completely realized, that even a few serious technical issues cannot detract from the final experience.
None of these qualities capture the quiet of this game, though. The stillness it draws out of me. Some nights I couldn’t play it because I didn’t have the calm. Driving my Cyclops submarine through Lost River and into the lowest depths required my complete preparation and attention. Extracting myself and all my materials afterwards somehow required even more. It was an ordeal, like any real journey, and it weighed on me. Floating there in the deep, so far from the surface, I would often think of the end of Jane Campion’s The Piano, one of my favorite movies. I would think of the ocean’s weird lullaby, of the buried selves floating below, of how part of me wanted to stay “in the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea.” Not death overcome, as in most videogames, but death contemplated and dwelled in. My usual voices hushed. This silence in me.
I’m back now, but like with any powerful experience, part of me is still anchored there. Still floating in the silence below. My speaking voice here on the surface, though, wants others to know: Subnautica is not only the greatest deep, deep sea game I’ve ever played, not only the greatest survival and exploration game I’ve experienced, it’s one of the greatest videogames of this generation.