Current Events > It's hard to understand what the devs were thinking with Subnautica Below Zero

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like it seems like they wrote down a list of all the things people found so incredible about the first game, and then just...decided to remove or cheapen those things.

Like they decided to make the game significantly less scary. Creatures pose little to no threat, the sounds they make are largely meaningless, you don't have as many ways to deal with them. There's 7 leviathans that hardly bother you in this game, whereas there were 30 in the first game, and every single one of them a huge threat.

The Cyclops is gone. The thing that replaced it is not as cool.

Things aren't as dark and the map isn't as large, so if you ever get lost it's mostly just because you're struggling to navigate around a maze. You never feel truly remote.

You now have a sassy protagonist any many friends she talks to. So I guess the whole feeling of being completely isolated is gone?

As is the feeling of discovery through journal entries. Now the game just tells me what happened?

You spend more time on land, with more on-land base building options? Ok. The game is about being underwater isn't it?

I hope this is kind of like a Dark Souls 1/2/3 scenario, where the 2nd game is a weird distraction from the core gameplay loop and they rediscover it come the next entry.

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I have around 56 hours in the first game and am thinking about beating it and playing the second.

I haven't completely decorated my cyclops yet, but I've built and upgraded all the modules for it and everything else.

I keep seeing such mixed feelings on the second game though.

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pinky0926 posted...

The Cyclops is gone. The thing that replaced it is not as cool.

You never wanted to live out your dreams of being an undersea trucker?

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This lines up with what I've heard before too bad it sounds like the sequel was so bad.

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I have a theory that it was to make it more console friendly. Pop-in was a big deal on my PC. So I think they probably shrunk the environments to reduce that. Once they did that, there was no room for a cyclops.

I also have a feeling like maybe they lost the people who did the music from the first game? The sound design just isnt as good.

pinky0926 posted...

There's 7 leviathans that hardly bother you in this game, whereas there were 30 in the first game, and every single one of them a huge threat.

This is what the first game wants you to believe. The music, sounds, everything tricks you into believing theyre all threats. But you can literally just walk by the junior Ghost Leviathans in the Prawn Suit. They may take a bite but its not really that critical. Daddy Ghosts are aggressive but easily avoidable. You dont even have to go where any are at. Crab Squid are easily out run. The only real problem in the game are Reapers.

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Honestly I was worried about them, but then I just started drilling everything in the face.

I don't even bother to really avoid reapers or ghosts now... just drill the face with the prawn suit then pop out and repair after it runs away and keep mining/exploring.

Those deep emp spiders I just jump out and go ham with my thermo blade and they run off as well.

Once I realized how wimpy everything was and the only reason I died the first few times was because I kept running, it was kinda sad.

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Dang they took out the Cyclops huh...what a friggin dumb unnecessary decision. It was the most game-improving aspect behind the original.

Not gonna bother buying it ever then based on that notion.

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Mr Hangman posted...

The reason is that the map is too small to properly utilize the Cyclops. It's useless above ground,

Which is the developers short sightedness. Imagine if the sub had been able to break through the ice sheet like a real US Navy sub!

https://youtu.be/9990wY1DEhk

They should have turned up the difficulty and covered the entire map in ice. So now, theres no going up for air and the endgame is reversed. Now you have to build the cyclops to go up and break through the ice to get to the endgame.

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