One of the best survival games ever just got a free Switch 2 upgrade, and it's well worth a return
Kelp, I need somebody.
Is there a more terrifying sound in video games than the roar of a Reaper Leviathan or the irritated gurgle of a Crashfish as it suddenly torpedoes toward you from shadows unseen? I mean, yes, probably - but that's not the point. Every time I slip the word "horror" into conversations about Subnautica, it's usually met with dismissals and frowns. And sure, developer Unknown Worlds' sublime underwater survival adventure isn't technically horror, but I can think of few games capable of instilling such an ominous sense of dread in me, such a suffocating fear of the watery unknown, as this one. And with Subnautica's free Switch 2 update now here, what better time for reminiscences and to make myself unreasonably anxious all over again?
It is, of course, tricky to talk about Subnautica without acknowledging the acrimonious legal battle between Unknown Worlds' ousted leadership (including original Subnautica director and designer Charlie Cleveland) and studio owner Krafton. But even that dark shadow doesn't take away from the fact that Subnautica remains, some eight years after its 1.0 release, one of the best survival games out there. This you'll already know if you've previously made acquaintance with its thalassophobia-inducing rhythms, but for the newcomers among us, some quick scene-setting; things beginning as you, Ryley Robinson - the sole surviving crew member of the starship Aurora - crash into the remote ocean planet of 4546B.
There are signs Subnautica is something a little bit special - that Unknown Worlds has ambitions beyond merely being another (wetter) entry in the overcrowded survival genre - right from the off. Your adventure starts with a wonderfully dramatic set-piece as your tiny escape pod, with you strapped in it, plummets toward 4546B; alarms blaring, fires erupting around you in first-person, and then darkness. And once you regain consciousness and pop open your battered pod's hatch, you get the full visual force of the planet itself - an endless shimmering ocean, stretching toward a horizon only broken by the belching, battered bulk of the half-submerged Aurora. Subnautica is great at doing story, but never in a way that never feels like it's encroaching on your agency. Yes, progress is guided, giving focus to your otherwise fairly open-ended survival adventure, but it's done subtly - Unknown Worlds always taking care to ensure its narrative is borne from a sense of your own exploration and discovery.
As for the survival, it's relatively familiar stuff on a basic level. You'll murder fish for sustenance with your thermoblade, replenish your oxygen once in a while, desalinate seawater to quench your thirst, and scavenge scrap in order to craft and slowly amass new equipment. And that's when things start to get properly interesting. Before long, you'll have a slick, functional underwater base - a place to prepare for expeditions and shelter away from the ocean's deadlier elements - as well as your first submersible, gradually opening 4546B up for further, deeper exploration. And once you escape the crystalline waters of the Safe Shallows, things get stranger, darker, and - I don't care what anyone says - absolutely bloody terrifying.
You'll explore kelp forests as huge saw-nosed things charge at you through the murk; investigate mysterious underground caverns and squeal at their pouncing, serpentine inhabitants; inch across vast expanses of darkness, punctuated by occasional splashes of bioluminescence and... worse. Subnautica's striking environmental design is wonderfully memorable, fully selling the illusion of a vast underwater world, and it only gets weirder, more oppressive the further you go. You'll meet lumbering pole-legged creatures on distant dunes, aggressive crab squids with eerily translucent forms in gloomier corners, and eventually (although you'll likely hear them long before you see them) come Subnautica's apex predators: the pincer-faced Leviathans - as massively intimidating as they sound.
And as Unknown Worlds slowly nudges you downward, deeper, the light of the surface ebbing completely away, well - I don't mind admitting that was the point, surrounded by the suffocating horror of yawning nothingness, I had to put the controller down for a while. Throughout all this wide-eyed exploratory wonder/terror, Unknown Worlds seeds new discoveries, new story moments and set-pieces, new surprises, all pushing you toward an end point in a way that feels natural and properly satisfying. It's a brilliantly designed, beautifully refined survival adventure (the voice acting and synth-heavy soundtrack are stellar too) and it's one I've been intrigued to revisit even as my Leviathan-ravaged nerves protest the idea.
Which brings us back to Subnautica's new Switch 2 update. It's available right now as a free upgrade for owners of the original Switch release, bringing promise of a boost to visuals, resolution, and performance. Subnautica has always run a bit erratically, even on a decent PC, so expectations were never particularly high when it came to the Switch 1 release; but the compromises of that version give way to something a little smoother and more striking on Switch 2 - even if early reports suggest it doesn't hit its 60fps target with any real consistency. But still, there's something enormously appealing about returning to Subnautica on a handheld - and not just (but mainly, I admit) because I feel like it'll be considerably less intimidating on a small screen. And when I'm done with that, Subnautica's standalone expansion Below Zero has been given a Switch 2 upgrade too, and I've not played that one at all. To 4546B or not to 4546B, then, that is the question - and I reckon I'm ready to dive back in.