The developers of Subnautica 2 and their players do not agree when it comes to combat. Despite the great success, the dispute over the fundamental issue is currently in focus.
What is this dispute about? While Subnautica 2 is a survival game, it’s not about eliminating all dangers with violence sooner or later.
This is rather unusual in the genre, as players are used to at least defending themselves against attackers with rudimentary means. In Subnautica 2, however, players are supposed to hide from the greatest dangers of the sea, and the developers also explain why.
Here you can watch a trailer for Subnautica 2:
The End of the Food Chain
What do the developers explain? In a conversation with journalists from PCGamer and RockPaperShotgun, the developers of Subnautica 2 expressed their views on combat and killing. They emphasized that this is a fundamental philosophy of their title.
“The core concept of the game we are developing is: You are here to live on this planet, not to dominate it. You are not the conquering colonizer,” said Anthony Gallegos, head of gameplay design at Unknown Worlds. “The goal is not to dominate the world and impose your will on it.”
Subnautica 2 gives players the option to fend off attacks from creatures with drills, flares, and more, but extinguishing them is not in line with the developers’ intentions. This was also the stance in the first part, as Creative Media Producer Scott MacDonald explains.
Back then, players were given a knife to defend themselves, but the health bars of enemies served as a warning: “We set the hit points so high that we thought no one would bother trying to kill them or anything like that,” said MacDonald. “And then the community takes that as a challenge, right?”
Why shouldn’t players just eliminate the fish? The tension in the game comes from the fact that the developers also have stronger fish and monsters in the depths that players must fear. Thus, the focus for the developers is less on promoting a pacifistic gameplay style, especially since smaller fish are constantly eliminated to eat.
Rather, the developers want to ensure that there are creatures that are superior to the player, thereby highlighting the survival aspect.
How does the community react to the refusal? Although the developers thoroughly present their thoughts on the subject in the interviews, these do not align with the majority of players. They are complaining on Reddit as much as they can and demand weapons. This is how it sounds on Reddit:
- TheMobyTheDuck: “So it’s okay to shove half the fauna into a bag and squeeze them into a juicer for water, but using a mech to give a shark that has been bothering me for 15 minutes a smack is going too far?”
- DrPandemias: “People outside the game misunderstand this. The complaint is not that you can’t kill enemies, but that you can’t interact with or combat them in any way. There are MANY of them and they are very aggressive. Some areas are currently extremely annoying to play because 4-5 enemies are shooting at you, shocking you, and biting you while you try to do a specific task.”
- Tzazon: “People don’t want to kill the leviathans; they want to kill the medium-sized fish that are as big as their own vehicles and constantly occupy every good base location. They can come back after a respawn timer; a single survivor is not going to dominate the entire planet from hammerhead sharks, ‘Nibbler Mangos’ and ‘Marrowbreaches’. However, they should be able to defend themselves and their tadpole and outposts against nearby predators.
- AHomicidalTelevision: “So you’re basically upset that people killed the leviathans in the first part, even though they only had a knife for it.”
While players understand what the developers want to express, they would rather have a game in which they can at least defend themselves against equally matched enemies. The community rejects being bullied. Despite the conflict, Subnautica 2 receives a lot of praise: Subnautica 2 makes other “Early Access” games on Steam look bad because it does one thing much better
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