Subnautica

They told me it was a survival game. Nobody mentioned the survival part was sprint-swimming from a demon shrimp, fighting a sea cucumber with a pocket knife, and being stalked by things that shouldn’t have that many teeth—or that much rage.
11/10 would hyperventilate again

One of the best games I've ever played in my life. Graphics, beautiful, the quality of the music and sound, absolutely amazing. Play the game, it's worth your time and money. Bravo, Subnautica.

Why Subnautica Stands Out
Intro & Positives
I played Subnautica for the first time in 2024, and the this game really impressed me. Normally, I am not the biggest fan of the crafting and survival game because all of them feel and look same to me. But Subnautica manages to be different from others in its genre. It's not just about gathering resources and building stuff; it's about exploring this beautiful, mystical underwater world that feels alive. It is a game full of atmosphere, and mystery. The one thing I most liked was the underwater environment: detailed, creative, with various biomes, it really feels like a place. You get this sense of wonder when you swim around, find new areas, and see strange creatures. The story was interesting too and gave me a reason to press onward.
Negatives
With that said, there were certainly a few things I did not quite enjoy as much. There were points when it seemed I spent more time grinding for materials than actually exploring or enjoying the story. Also, some of the survival mechanics-such as managing food and water-actually became quite frustrating at times. The negatives for me were still significantly outweighed by the positives.
Conclusion
Subnautica, for me, was one of those games that felt very different compared to most survival games and had me hooked from start to finish. Having played this game, I'm looking forward to Subnautica 2, even though it doesn't give great signals.
SILVER MEDAL
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This game literally changed my life, it changed the way I view the worlds beauty and gave me a deeper interest in marine life. I'll never forget my first play-through. I can't recommend Subnautica enough, the world building and story telling are amazing, it really makes you feel like you're living on 4546b. The balance of wanting to beat the game and never wanting it to be over because you fall in love with the world is a feeling I don't think will ever be recreated for me quite the same way. I've been playing this game for years and it still hasn't lost it touch even after all this time. You'll enjoy this game for it's game play and mechanics, but you'll fall in love with it for it's rich story, amazing ecosystems, captivating wildlife, and deep world-building. I recommend playing this game not for the ending (though it is amazing) but for the journey there, take your time, explore every nook cranny and tiny cave, listen to the PDA entries, scan the wildlife and read about how they live, build not just a house or a base but a home, look for easter eggs, and dive into every wonder-filled biome no matter how deep and dark. You will be rewarded. It's unique charm is everywhere you look and it's worth every second and penny you spend on it. I could go on and on about how much I love this game but I think it's better you play it for yourself.
It isn't without a bug or flaw here and there, like sometimes the fauna and vehicles can clip through the floor, and I wish there was a way to customize the inside of the cyclops color or the outside of your bases more, and if you could dock your cyclops somehow so it didn't just sit next to your base without much of a true home I would love that, perhaps the sequel can add a larger moon bay. And I'd love more ways to make inventory management easier, like an expandable bag of some kind or simply the sea-glide only taking 4 slots would be great too. But those are really my only nit-picks, this game is amazing and I can't thank the devs enough for making it. I'm beyond excited for Subnautica 2 to release. This game competes with Minecraft, Breath of the wild, and Pokemon for the title of my favorite game. Yet when someone asks me what my favorite game is, Subnautica always comes to mind first. Just play it, it's a 10/10.

Subnautica is a "crafting survival" kind of game done right. You won't be farming mobs for XP, punching trees for 10 minutes straight or otherwise grinding ridiculous amounts of materials for basic crafting and upgrades. What you will be doing instead is mostly exploring and uncovering the mysteries of this game's gorgeous depths, utilizing vehicles rarely seen in other games and improving your gear so you could go deeper. You of course could gather lots of materials and build giant bases should you want to but strictly speaking it is neither required nor really meaningfully rewarded by the game. You'll need a starter base and one, at most two more in deeper areas. Subnautica is about going on a journey, quite often in a literal sense, learning about its world and the story behind the player character's situation and ultimately - getting out of there. Resource gathering is simply means to an end and fortunately you don't need that much. Progress is gated by exploration and some gear upgrades as more advanced and rare resources are only found in biomes that are farther away from the starting area.
The atmosphere, music, visuals, setting are all stellar. Story is... functional, I guess. It is there but it doesn't make too much sense. Good enough to not get in the way which is not necessarily bad on its own. Plenty of plot holes if you really care but definitely nothing bad enough to shatter your suspension of disbelief.
I would like to make a separate point regarding the behaviour of other life forms seen in the game world. Most of them are quite simply animals and they behave like animals would. Won't delve into detail as not to spoil anything, but the majority of other living beings are as preoccupied with their own survival as the player is.
It was refreshing to simply be done with this kind the game in 50 hours or so but really it could be finished in around 30. Instead of wasting the player's time in grind-build-upgrade cycles Subnautica logically wraps up and has a defined, meaningful ending.
My two complaints would be performance and inventory management. Subnautica looks very pleasing and even cozy most of the time but also for the game of its age and graphical complexity it is very poorly optimised. I only had a good experience thanks to my system being much more potent than those that Subnautica was expected to be ran on release. As for inventory management, the game simply lacks even most basic QoL features but fortunately there are mods to fix that. One I would wholeheartedly recommend is EasyCraft. Others worthy of note would be Base Kits, Quick Slots Plus, Better Scanner Blips, Tweaks And Fixes and Defabricator.
But overall Subnautica is an easiest recommendation ever, it is one of the best if not THE best game in the whole genre. I wish I played it sooner. Just remember - if you are feeling lost all you need to do is explore and go deeper.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

*starts game*
*explores the pod*
*spends 5 minutes looking for an exit*
*finally leaves the pod*
*explores everything around*
*finds stone, breaks it and gets copper*
*sees big fish, tries to punch it*
*dead*
*discovers the use of fabricator*
*starts making things*
*makes mobile vehicle bay*
*builds a seamoth after 2 hours of gameplay*
*goes exploring*
*hears a terrifying roar*
*looks back*
*huge white thing with 4 mandibles(later i discovered the name was reaper) gets me in the seamoth*
*has a heart attack*
*seamoth is destroyed*
*quits game*
*still having a heart attack*
10/10 increased my fear of the sea lol