Subnautica - Gameclub

For this month’s Gameclub, Alon, Danny and Teddy talk a lot about Subnautica.

You are a lone survivor after an interstellar spaceship crashes down on an ocean planet. What do you do? Scuba dive and mine minerals until you can blast back off into space, of course. The game isn’t perfect, but the ambiance? Flawless.

We spend a lot of time talking about the early access release schedule and how that likely influenced the final product. Subnautica isn’t quite sure what it wants to be and as a result doesn’t really nail anything. That’s okay because we love that people are trying big bold things.

For the next Gameclub we are going to be playing Metal Gear Solid -- the PC version: https://www.gog.com/game/metal_gear_solid

We got a lot of requests to do The Last of Us and Metal Gear Solid 2, which we’ll do next in that order, so we’re going to do a faster turnaround with MGS and record on September 22nd.

Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 02:00 - Subnautica overview
• 03:58 - Modding, the mother of games
• 05:54 - Charlie Cleveland’s (lead designer) pillars of game design
• 08:14 - Early access: medium is the message
• 11:10 - Criticism is easy - building games is hard
• 13:40 - From Fortnite to majesty
• 19:02 - The horror
• 23:06 - Scuba diving, scale, and realism
• 30:37 - Wishing this was the real ocean
• 38:45 - What kind of game is this. Survival?
• 49:03 - Open World?
• 54:37 - Teaching you how to play, sort of
• 59:23 - Retracing your steps feels bad
• 1:01:11 - Early access content release
• 1:05:00 - Story drops are cool
• 1:06:27 - Looking stuff up
• 1:09:40 - End of the game is hard gated
• 1:12:45 - Revamping the Cyclops
• 1:16:30 - It should have been multiplayer
• 1:26:40 - Hows the story
• 1:35:55 - Wide Flank questions
• 1:52:38 - Reflecting on the Pillars

Show Notes:

• Ratatouille and being a critic : https://youtu.be/Ih6jcKd7VwU
• Subnautica update history: https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Update_History_(Subnautica)
• Medium is the message: https://youtu.be/AxFzf6yIfcc
• Sonic air bubble: https://youtu.be/WP5CUZZ_vCc
• Reframing the Cyclops: https://www.charliecleveland.com/reframing-the-cyclops/
• Hunt for Red October: https://youtu.be/4unk6siO-tI
• Deadspace co-op losing your mind: https://youtu.be/Wdws6dtF-2A?t=440s
• Loss of colors underwater: https://www.scubadiverinfo.com/2_red_at_depth.html