Full spoilers (kinda the point of a review though) because there's quite a few problems with this.
It's such a downgrade from the first game that it's honestly depressing.
I bought it the second it launched into Early Access because it was the sequel to my favourite survival game, and I enjoyed it up until the full launch. The original story was pretty good, and left off on a neat setup to what could happen next - but then they overhauled it all for the full launch (actually, I think it was the update before the final launch. Either way, it was really close to launch).
They reworked the story so much that it got completely butchered and ruined. The characters are basically non-existent (why should I care about the already-dead sister? I cared about the Degasi's story because of the possibility that I could find them in the game, but here I just have no reason to bother with it), there's no stakes when underwater (since you can find oxygen plants everywhere), and the story is such a mess - it even ruins the Precursors! (who are now the "Architects". I don't mind the rename, but everything else was undone for no real reason). They were the first game's greatest mystery that I always wanted to know more about, but now I wish I'd never found out.
So, gameplay-wise it seems similar to the first - but there's multiple key differences that drag it down. As I said above, the constant oxygen plants ruin any sort of tension in any cavernous area, most creatures feel like a non-threat, and the PRAWN suit was brought back even though it's not really necessary here.
In addition, Robin as a character is just
annoying. She
constantly quips about everything that happens, makes constant (albeit skippable) personal logs about everything that happens, and although she does react to having an alien shoved into her head, I vastly prefer the original one that tied into her job and personality. The logs make some sense in-universe, but it's still a bit annoying to see the pop-up every time I acquire some basic resource or tool.
The new PDA is also awful. It doesn't have any of the occasional dry humour of the original one and has a pointless accent that just makes it hard to understand - for the record, both PDAs are voiced by text-to-speech which is then modulated to sound more robotic, so it's not like it'd be hard for them to re-record everything and make it actually good.
In addition, the new "unstuck" button is neat, but takes over the area that the save button was in originally - ruining my muscle memory. Changing the "quick move item" key to left-click is also
absolutely infuriating. Both of those are kinda minor, but still bother me a lot.
And now, the biggest offender: Sam just magically making a fucking antidote for Kharaa out of a goddamn pepper and frosty plant. What the hell is this?! There's no way the Architects wouldn't find that out like 30 seconds after landing on the planet. I don't even know if I can properly communicate how awful this decision was in so many ways.
But
fine, the spy penguin inventor
somehow cures this millennia-old bacterium with 2 random objects - oh wait, that brings me to the Spy Pengling!
The Spy Pengling is utterly pointless and I despise it. It's a neat gimmick, sure - but why are you
required to make one so you can retrieve the antidote blueprint and Snow Stalker fur? Both items are kinda essential to beating the game (moreso the former), but I don't understand why you're forced to use this dumb clunky robot rather than shimmying into the caves to cut fur off stalkers and grab a blueprint. The thing only has 4 slots too, and while that is exactly enough to make a Cold Suit - it's utterly abysmal otherwise. It's just a useless gimmick all around.
I used it twice in my entire ~15 hour playthrough: Once to get fur, and once to retrieve the blueprint. That's it. I had no other reason to bother with the thing because of how redundant it is.
Like the Cuttlefish in the first game (and Trivalve in this one - it's cuter, fight me), it's a neat bit of side content for those who want it - but [strike]free bioreactor fuel[/strike] a pointless distraction for everyone else. Unlike the Cuttlefish though, you're forced to get this macguffin to progress the story - which makes it go from "neat side content" to "frustrating pointlessness".
Now for the second largest offender: Marguerit surviving. They give some excuse about how she had a reaper carcass for food/shelter and a bit of water, but there's no way you could survive however long is needed to go from the crater to sector zero by just floating and hoping. Having her be one of the dead members of the Degasi was so much better.
In terms of story, she's just kinda there. Helps a bit with Sam's plot, but you could easily write her out and be fine. This game kinda has two plotlines going at once: Sam and Al-An. I don't care about the former, and the latter partially ruins some of the mystery of the precursors.
Now then, onto Al-An's story.
As a character, he's ok with some dumb writing flaws (mainly the contradictions he makes about Architects being a collective but also being individual), and while his plotline is
vastly better than Sam's, it's still not great. The quest to construct his body is an annoying one, requiring you to hunt down caches hidden in obscure locations across 3 biomes, then drag them all to the bottom of the map in order to actually make his body and finally win the game.
Now I'm not an Architect, but I do know that storing the fabrication facility at the bottom of the map is a bit dumb. What if you need to get there in an emergency? What if a Shadow Leviathan breaks into it, like the Sea Dragon did in the first game? (though it is more hidden & protected, so perhaps they did that after the Disease Research Facility got destroyed). It just doesn't make a lot of logical sense imo.
Anyway, gather all the macguffins and plop a bunch of resources into the special Architect fabricators and bam, Al-An has his own body with a neat design (though I do think it could be improved - but at the same time their bodies are made of DNA from multiple species, which is reflected in its design). Slap your brain into him and bam, ready to leave the planet.
So he tells you to take a 5 kilometer journey back to the surface to the Architect Phase Gate Facility and transport to his home planet (seemingly with no way back). That's.... a bit of a leap. First game's ending was you escaping, but this one's seems akin to the pilot episode of some epic space opera.
Worth noting too that you don't need to bring any of the Kharaa Antidote (god, I wanna explode every time I have to type that), so you've most likely spread the infection to the home planet (granted, it's possible they're already infected - but if not, you've now doomed them all). This is mostly Robin's fault for not reminding him, but Al-An could've piped up (since he's been in your head for the entire game) and said "oh btw we should bring some of the Deus Ex Antidotum just in case", but neither character bothers.
In addition, Robin just decides to abandon her goal of finding out what happened to Sam if you didn't progress far enough into Sam's story (I did check the wiki page to see if there's a slight alternate ending, but during my playthrough I got every achievement just so I could be fully done with the game), which just
feels out of character to me. Robin kinda seems like the type of person who'd ensure she could finish whatever goal she had in mind, or at least try to do so if it's not a difficult task.
So to recap: Robin goes down to a known hostile planet with minimal supplies (not even a Habitat Builder & some spare parts to fashion a basic tube to cower in should she land somewhere dangerous), no escape plan, and flies close to a stray asteroid in a somewhat fragile escape pod-looking vehicle. It's really damn lucky that she didn't land in the void or near some squidsharks or what have you. Granted, the first game has a similar setup - but the Aurora's pilot knew there was land nearby because of the data he got after the ship got shot down, so he purposefully aimed for it to at least give any survivors a fighting chance. Robin just recklessly charges headfirst into a watery grave.
Her intent is to find out what happened to Sam (her older sister), but she finds a living member of the ancient Architect species everyone's found ruins of, reacts with annoyance rather than "holy shit this guy is still alive after like 3 millennia", then gets sent on a side quest to build him a proper body.
Body gets built, both of them leave the planet, and if the player didn't bother with Sam's story both of them possibly doomed the rest of the Architects to death (if any of them are still alive, at least).
It's just not that great of a plan nor narrative. Robin's constant quipping is also quite infuriating - ranging from her stating what just happened to making some obvious comment about what to do next.
The creature AI also feels really dumb. I've got over 5 minutes of clips where big leviathan enemies attack and barely do anything, then just swim off into nowhere leaving you wondering what the point was. It's just so deflating. Ice Worm is easily the worst offender in this regard. It's so braindeadingly easy with a Snowfox, and still easily avoidable on foot (also, the Snowfox's handling is terrible. Thing's way too damn sensitive).
I have over 250 hours on Subnautica and am still slightly scared of Reapers and avoid Sea Dragons at all costs, but outside of the initial startle from being attacked I feel nothing about the enemies in Below Zero (though the constant Cryptosuchus screeches are annoying af).
The only real improvements from the first are minor changes, but I know at least a few of them got added to the first game's Living Large update, so these are no longer improvements and now just good additions to both of them.
- Disinfected water giving 35 water is a nice tweak. Same for Filtered Water giving 25. Large Water is also a bit easier to get, which is nice.
- The crafting UI being a grid is a tad easier to navigate (moreso during the late-game when you have too many items listed)
- You don't auto-select a newly crafted tool (I like seeing the intro animations for them, but sometimes they'd get auto-selected at a bad time)
- Energy bars near equipment is
super noice
- Pinning blueprints is also quite nice (though they should unpin when crafted)
- The Seaglide having a second button to disable the map is great
- Breaking a deposit on land has proper physics now
And that's about it. Half a dozen nice Quality of Life changes that I've appreciated since I got the game. There's a lot of other minor issues, but I won't bother listing them here. You'll probably notice as you play.
But overall, I can't really recommend this. The story ruins most of the lore established in the first game, the characters are either annoying, dead, or have no reason to be there, and although the gameplay is kinda the same it just feels less fun than the first. You're sent on 4 or 5 fetch quests, and it's just annoying. I knew what to do beforehand, but both games have had this issue of constantly sending you back and forth.
To end this overly-long essay/rant hybrid, I highly recommend against this game.
Go buy the first game on 2 or 3 different platforms and get every achievement on each one. It's infinitely more fun than this disappointing follow-up is.
This guy's
video review breaks down a lot of the key points I made here in a great way - but even if you try to ignore Below Zero's story, it's just not as fun as the original Subnautica is.
2.0