Subnautica: Below Zero
Developer/publisher Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Format PC, PS4, PS5 (tested), Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Release Out now
Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.” So said the doomed Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, who came to embody the fatal romanticism of exploration after his death in 1922.Subnautica: Below Zero would make that quote its motto, if it could. Like Subnautica before it, Below Zero delights in difficulties – little tasks and morsels of busywork portioned out and rationed just enough to keep a thread of intrigue alive at all times, even when you’re swallowing water and drowning for the fourth time in some godforsaken cave 400 metres from the ocean surface.
Where the first Subnautica game coaxed you to the surface with its gorgeous overworld presented as a sort of extramundane Hawaiian resort, Below Zero makes anything above sea level distinctly unfriendly. Hailstones the size of your fist, cutting arctic winds and choking whiteouts sweep over the surface, forcing you underwater for shelter. It’s the opposite of instinctive, and takes some unlearning. Planet 4546B, the alien world upon which you’ve crash-landed, offers a frosty reception indeed.