Subnautica
It's been a very long time since I was so utterly absorbed by a game's atmosphere; it's probably the best exploration game I've played. It's the only game I've played that truly conveys the depth and uncertainty of the ocean whilst also being beautiful, amazing and scary. I played it twice during EA and it's awesome to see it finally released. The story elements are great, and they've made a really good job of the ending. It's clear that the team have put a ton of hard work in to making a really polished and deep game. Can't wait to see what they do next.
Pros
- Fantastic music and atmosphere
- Really immersive
- You can scan everything and read PDA data entries
- Voice logs are really well acted
- Excellent building system that lets you build anywhere; underwater, on land or inside your submarine
- Radio transmissions guide you to blueprints that are necessary for progressing the story
- Interesting and beautiful vehicles
- Decent story
- Tons of base building pieces to scan for blueprints
- Supports ultra-widescreen
- Player progression and upgrades are synthesised from the natural resources and creatures around you
Cons
- They never really fixed the object/texture pop-in, so when you're swimming into new areas, things pop into view. The view distance really isn't that far
- No cloud saves
- The map is pretty huge, and there's a lot of blueprints to unlock (which is excellent), but it's easy to miss something important for hours
- A patch in July 2020 introduced a horrible stuttering when walking, and sometimes when swimming up and down. This still hasn't been fixed as of April 2021
- Clipping can be a bit of an issue in general. I had to enable console commands to get my Seamoth back because a shark pushed it through the landscape while I was exploring a wreck