One aspect of Subnautica 2 that has strongly stood out to me as different from the original game is just how dangerously violent so many of the alien fish are. The first Subnautica was not without its aggressive sealife, especially the colossal kind, but you also had at least a weeny little knife to wave around in self-defense. In Subnautica 2 you’ve got flares, and the more I play, the more I’m finding myself frustrated by the constant annoyance of angry fishies trying to bash into me. It seems I’m not alone, and as IGN points out, there’s a growing number of players asking for the ability to fight back.
It was never the point of the original Subnautica to kill anything. The game was overtly pacifist in its design, and while you could get a knife very early on, it was primarily for cutting plant-life. However, it did also double up as a means of some defense against particularly aggressive animals that didn’t want to share their patch of ocean with you. Or, if you were a bad person, you could repeatedly swipe at the sealife and eventually kill it. Not so in the mostly impressive Subnautica 2, where the only means of evading such attacks are swimming away, or lobbing flares that very temporarily distract the irritating aquatics. You can also sort-of give them a blast from you Sonic Resonator, but it has very minimal effect. And while I’m fully in support of a Subnautica in which I neither can nor even want to kill anything, right now at this point of its Early Access release, the balance is definitely off.
IGN quotes Subnautica environmental artist uly as saying that the ability to kill fish remains a lively discussion within the development studio. “Trust me it is a HOT topic,” they quote the artist as saying. And while this particular developer is on the side of letting players kill the smaller fish (which might sound odd until you recognize that you can catch them, cook them, and eat them, which is also rather killy), they’re against being able to fight the shark-sized predators. However, “When you bump into a predator you shouldn’t be going ‘uuuuuuugh what a pain,’ you should be going, ‘Ah man…what tools do I have up my sleeve to deal with this guy?’”
I very strongly agree. Because right now as I play, “uuuuuugh” is a far too common refrain. The issue is, creatures like the Bullethead and Marrowbreach are obsessive pests with vastly too much power. So you’re trying to complete a required task that involves staying in the same spot, and these buggers are incessantly ramming into you, biting you, electrocuting, poisoning and stinging you, and the only thing you can do is wave a flare. This is especially the case when it comes to later tasks involving clearing viral bloom from infected angel combs, where you are outrageously vulnerable the entire time with no recourse. So instead of feeling like you’re bravely surviving, instead you just feel helpless and annoyed, and that can’t be the angle developer Unknown Worlds is aiming for. Instead of seeing larger, aggressive fish as an interesting challenge, I see them as something that’s just actively spoiling the game for me.
The same is true, in fact, with the far larger sea monsters. The Collector Leviathan whom you encounter early on is at first a very exciting creature to meet, terrifyingly huge and extraordinarily dangerous, making for a thrilling Subnautica moment. But then as you’re required by the game’s overly pushy plot to repeatedly go through its territory, it quickly becomes a tiresome burden. I read one site advising players that they could get past it undisturbed by bunny-hopping their Tadpole crafts above the surface of the sea, which is just about the most ridiculous way to have to play. I’ve taken to diving super-deep, because at least there’s a chance of seeing something interesting, and then just hoping that the creature, which is significantly faster than my souped-up craft, doesn’t grab me that time. I should be looking forward to these encounters! There should be a technique I’ve learned for putting it off—flashing my headlights at it such that it gets upset, or a tool I can use to make a sonic explosion—which then makes passing it more academic after the first couple of times.
There will be those out there who just want a sea-gun, and I hope and assume that they will remain disappointed. Subnautica 2 is not about fighting the environment, but rather embracing it in order to survive. I have no desire to kill these animals (other than for my tea), but I also don’t want my experience playing the game to be so frequently sullied by the tedium they currently introduce. What if they’re upset by bright lights, and I can craft an extra-powerful flare that’ll keep them all at a distance while I get on with a task? Or perhaps some sort of sonic weapon that upsets them enough to make them want to swim off? Let it come at a cost, let it be tough to craft, or require frequent charging. This isn’t about cheesing the game. It’s about having an in-game method to enjoy the experience an awful lot more than the game is currently offering.
