Review will contain minor spoilers.

It's tough to review this game when you can just give a thumbs up or down. Ultimately, you can see where I landed- I think this game is competently made and well put together. However, I can't deny that the sum of its parts is less than Subnautica 1.

This game has a much tighter focus on plot, which I appreciate- but it doesn't quite stick the landing. The game is much smaller than the original. The biomes are smaller, the threats are smaller, the tech tree progresses at breakneck speed. Unfortunately, this means that the plot doesn't really have the time or space to develop its characters much. Your protagonist, Robin, has a backstory and motivations which are clear but never particularly relevant to the plot besides telling you why she's on the planet. I don't feel like the game took advantage of the opportunity it had to expand on the Subnautica universe- we get told in the broadest, most general terms that Alterra is evil, but they don't give them any teeth. They never feel particularly threatening- all of their evil deeds are done offscreen, all of their facilities save a single satellite transmission tower are in ruins. Why should I care about what they were maybe trying to do at some point in the past, but demonstrably failed? They should be more of a clear and present danger here.

You also get an alien companion who lives in your brain. I was really excited about this at first- we get to find out more about the architects! But you don't, like, get to chat with him. He doesn't comment on things you do as you explore, or places you visit besides a few scripted architect base locations, and those are mostly just "you're getting close to a base". It was a serious missed opportunity to both trickle out interesting lore for people who care about that, and to just get us to care about this pivotal plot character. Boggles my mind there isn't more idle chat here to fill the exploration time. It feels like you get an alien downloaded into your brain and then you can just kinda forget about it for hours and hours at a time. (Marguerit is a gem, though, and I wish she was in a lot more of the game than she is- she makes a very few, very scant appearances)

That said, due to the smaller biomes, there is a lot less time spent exploring in this game than the previous. Smaller doesn't mean worse, to be clear- but I do think they didn't quite strike the balance here. I could not, for the life of me, find a place to put my base that felt convenient- everywhere felt equally like it was either inconvenient or already occupied, due to the smaller scale of the world.

I agree with everyone about the Seatruck being a very poor substitute for the Cyclops and Seamoth. A modular vehicle sounds amazing on paper- but not when it's incredibly frustrating to drive, and when the modules are all so underwhelming.

Ultimately, this still plays like Subnautica, and Subnautica is good as hell- it's a good game. But it's a sequel that tried to experiment with the formula of the first game and, to my mind, wasn't bold or clear-eyed enough to QUITE make it work. Maybe this had something ot do with the story getting rewritten entirely halfway thoguh- perhaps there was a budget or time crunch on getting the new story complete, I'm not sure- but there's still plenty of promise here, and it's still worth a play if you liked the first one.

Review will contain minor spoilers. It's tough to review this game when you can just give a thumbs up or down. Ultimately, you can see where I landed- I think this game is competently made and well put together. However, I can't deny that the sum of its parts is less than Subnautica 1. This game has a much tighter focus on plot, which I appreciate- but it doesn't quite stick the landing. The game is much smaller than the original. The biomes are smaller, the threats are smaller, the tech tree progresses at breakneck speed. Unfortunately, this means that the plot doesn't really have the time or space to develop its characters much. Your protagonist, Robin, has a backstory and motivations which are clear but never particularly relevant to the plot besides telling you why she's on the planet. I don't feel like the game took advantage of the opportunity it had to expand on the Subnautica universe- we get told in the broadest, most general terms that Alterra is evil, but they don't give them any teeth. They never feel particularly threatening- all of their evil deeds are done offscreen, all of their facilities save a single satellite transmission tower are in ruins. Why should I care about what they were maybe trying to do at some point in the past, but demonstrably failed? They should be more of a clear and present danger here. You also get an alien companion who lives in your brain. I was really excited about this at first- we get to find out more about the architects! But you don't, like, get to chat with him. He doesn't comment on things you do as you explore, or places you visit besides a few scripted architect base locations, and those are mostly just "you're getting close to a base". It was a serious missed opportunity to both trickle out interesting lore for people who care about that, and to just get us to care about this pivotal plot character. Boggles my mind there isn't more idle chat here to fill the exploration time. It feels like you get an alien downloaded into your brain and then you can just kinda forget about it for hours and hours at a time. (Marguerit is a gem, though, and I wish she was in a lot more of the game than she is- she makes a very few, very scant appearances) That said, due to the smaller biomes, there is a lot less time spent exploring in this game than the previous. Smaller doesn't mean worse, to be clear- but I do think they didn't quite strike the balance here. I could not, for the life of me, find a place to put my base that felt convenient- everywhere felt equally like it was either inconvenient or already occupied, due to the smaller scale of the world. I agree with everyone about the Seatruck being a very poor substitute for the Cyclops and Seamoth. A modular vehicle sounds amazing on paper- but not when it's incredibly frustrating to drive, and when the modules are all so underwhelming. Ultimately, this still plays like Subnautica, and Subnautica is good as hell- it's a good game. But it's a sequel that tried to experiment with the formula of the first game and, to my mind, wasn't bold or clear-eyed enough to QUITE make it work. Maybe this had something ot do with the story getting rewritten entirely halfway thoguh- perhaps there was a budget or time crunch on getting the new story complete, I'm not sure- but there's still plenty of promise here, and it's still worth a play if you liked the first one.