Subnautica - Undah Dah Sea (you die)

[OutInTheRain]

Early access is crazy. No one can convince me buying a game before full release is worth it anymore, especially when the meme of developing the game alongside community input is so blatantly disregarded.

I understand the strategy behind it. Go put out a game and drip feed content to keep it in the news cycle for the next two years. Every time you put out a patch, streamers play it and you gain more sales. However, it does not work in an iterative sequel. People know what to expect. An iterative sequel should have all the things at launch, as the previous entry had at end of life.

If you don't then you're using EA to pad development time and generate revenue before being able to ship a completed product. Since you're using EA to pad development time, you can't exactly pivot to player demands and feedback. On top of that, I imagine adding something like being able to stab wildlife would require reams and reams of new code and animations, which would slow down dev time. So it's a fundamental flaw in the game design itself. Let people kill underwater horrors!

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

How do you even do Early Access gating bullshit in an exploration game without completely ruining the experience?

You're tooting around in your little diving bell and suddenly *BONK* invisible wall. Hey fren, looking for the rest of the game? Come back in 12-24 months and there's a chance it'll be here!

 

[Breadbassket]

Subnautica 2 has a very impressive EULA.

 

[geckogoy]

How do you even do Early Access gating bullshit in an exploration game without completely ruining the experience?

You dont

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

Early access is crazy. No one can convince me buying a game before full release is worth it anymore

Ironically, I've pretty much only bought Early games after pirating and shit-testing them first, same as full games.

I can count the number of games on one hand that had a single complete, fun gameplay loop implemented when supposedly in beta.

 

[Coldsteel the Hedgehog]

Ironically, I've pretty much only bought Early games after pirating and shit-testing them first, same as full games.

I can count the number of games on one hand that had a single complete, fun gameplay loop implemented when supposedly in beta.

1. Make game EA despite success of prior entries
2. Use the logic that it is so that the community can have input on the game's development
3. Gamers (2 million) who paid to beta test your game give feedback on your game, stating that they don't like that they can't kill even the smallest fish with a knife, as they could in previous entries in the franchise, (no one ever complained that being able to kill creatures was unfun).
4. Tell your supporters that they can suck a fat one because this is the game's vision.

Early access is crazy. No one can convince me buying a game before full release is worth it anymore, especially when the meme of developing the game alongside community input is so blatantly disregarded.

Funny enough, one of the only EA games I would consider a success would be the original Subnautica.

 

[ATandTism]

I was a huge fan of S1, and less a fan of BZ (I hated the protag and all the talking, but it was still fun at times, if a bit different), and so far I'm not sure what to think of 2.

I'm not a fan of so much log overload, but honestly I've just been sorta tuning them out and not paying all that much attention so I couldn't tell you anything about the characters. I really like the Axum though. I like the concept, so far the execution has been interesting. I'm kinda hoping they wrap up the pioneer's stories and give us more of that stuff.

As far as the game goes though, it's fun. Not as good as the first game, but it's hard to compare them fairly since I played that as a full game, and this is just EA. I've been enjoying the multiplayer a lot, and I don't hate the whole active/passive bioscanner abilities. I just hope they don't take ages to update the game.

The only criticism I have (aside from hating the logs) is that I miss the verticality of the first game. There's a little bit of that in 2, but I miss the cool cave zones and stuff. So far this one has felt much more flat/step-shaped outside of the initial shallows zone.

The 'descending into the depths' bit of the first one was great. Having to overcome your fear of the dark and the creatures in it to find answers and leave was a highlight. Also tack on their gay non-violence bullshit in Sub2 where you can't kill anything really undermines the 'survive to thrive' aspect of games like this. You start out afraid of your own shadow, but by the end you are grappling to reapers in your prawn suit and beating them to death. That neatly ties everything into a bow as your blast off leaving the world you conquered behind. But can' have that in Current Year because my hekkin nature and colonialism or some shit.

 

[regalterry]

If you don't then you're using EA to pad development time and generate revenue before being able to ship a completed product.

Subnautica 2 had been in development for over 4 years, which begs the question of what exactly they've been doing in that time that they need to release the game with 2/3 of the content missing?

 

[Kharash]

Subnautica 2 had been in development for over 4 years, which begs the question of what exactly they've been doing in that time that they need to release the game with 2/3 of the content missing?

No need to speculate, we know the lolsuit happened because they weren't doing anything.
While I have no love for the publisher either it's a damn shame they got rewarded for their scam, and now again with cattle buying into the EA.

 

[Shartavius]

How do you even do Early Access gating bullshit in an exploration game without completely ruining the experience?

 

[Fig Kommandant]

Subnautica 2 had been in development for over 4 years, which begs the question of what exactly they've been doing in that time that they need to release the game with 2/3 of the content missing?

Back in the day, it used to be that the majority of the game was made very late in development. Halo 2 was more or less made in the last seven months before release and everything prior was engine tooling, bugs, art style and so on. And once they figured the central gameplay and the engine was good, they made the actual game rather quickly. A ton of newer games also spend a lot of time on the art style, the engine, trying to figure out what to do but don't have the efficacy where they can ship a full game within a year from when they have everything they need. To further add onto that, Subnautica 1 was built in Unity while 2 is built on UE5, so the devs spent even more time on learning new tools.

 

[Dorothy]

What's up with the devs? What crawled up their assholes? I imagine there's a long story filled lolsuits and angry sperging on bluesky?