It can be upgraded for deeper exploration, and you can also use it to tow around the prawn suit, a sort of underwater mech with powerful mining and defensive capabilities.ĭisappointingly, Below Zero manages to retain the original’s graphical problems, with noticeable object pop-in, dropped frames, and relatively short draw distance even on the PlayStation 5. Although there are weapons, equipment is heavily slanted towards mining, exploration, and storage, and actually your most useful defence is ramming medium-sized predators with your mini-sub, the seatruck.Įschewing the original’s gradual escalation of submarine size, Below Zero instead lets you unlock modules for the seatruck, adding a portable fabricator, storage room, mobile aquarium, and sleeper unit – that lets you skip day or night cycles. From the sunny, resource rich shallows, you’ll find thermal vents in one direction, leading you out to unfathomable depths strewn with enormous floating lily pads, while in the other direction is an ice shelf and kelp forests.Įach of those biomes supports different ecosystems, both swimming and geological, offering new beasts and materials to scan into your PDA, mine for elements, and use in the construction of fresh gadgets. You can leave floating beacons at points of interest, and you’ll often have target areas highlighted for you, but you never get a visual map, relying instead on the superbly differentiated biomes and your natural sense of direction. Stray too far and the sea gets darker and the music fades, quietly telling you that you’ve gone too far without any eye rolling invisible walls or pointed announcements. The slow drip feed of new gadgets also gives the game a slight Metroidvania flavour, gradually opening up new cave systems and areas of the ocean, all of which were accessible from the start if only you’d had sufficient oxygen supply to explore them. The latter is practically a sub-game of its own, as your constructions get steadily more elaborate, adding flowerbeds, multiple rooms, a moon pool, observation pods, and all sorts of useful contraptions and decorative frippery. Underwater all is much as it was, but on the surface you start to freeze within seconds, hypothermia following in about a minute unless you find shelter, drink a cup of coffee, or huddle next to handy heat-radiating flora.ĭrowning doesn’t happen all that often though, especially once you’ve started to unlock more advanced equipment each piece of which adds a fresh dimension to exploration, giving you more time underwater, the ability to reach greater depths, and to stray further from the surface or your undersea base. Its premise is near identical to the original, only this time you’re deposited on a much colder ocean planet. Using the pod’s fabricator – the equivalent of a crafting table in Minecraft – you could turn the minerals you harvested into all manner of useful items, chemicals, and eventually machines.Ī standalone release, but still not quite a sequel, Below Zero has been in early access on PC for the last two years. The answer to that problem turned out to be crafting. The follow-up to Subnautica adds the perils of an ice planet to the original’s list of underwater threats, in this enjoyably mellow survival game.Ģ014’s Subnautica dropped you onto an ocean planet with nothing but an escape pod, and let you figure out how to survive in its cavernously deep, monster-infested waters. Subnautica: Below Zero – now the surface is as dangerous as the water (pic: Unknown Worlds Entertainment)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |