This was a misconception that I and many I've spoken to had with Subnautica, where it put out the vibe of an 'underwater Minecraft' kind of game. It's similar to games like Minecraft where a whole community exists that has figured out the keys to survival in Below Zero, which was released as an early access (Opens in a new tab) game more than two years ago.īut unlike Minecraft, there's a story driving Below Zero. And they happen often when you play the game on its own terms, without succumbing to the lure of a wiki filled with answers. These are the moments when Subnautica: Below Zero shines. For all its alien beauty, planet 4546B is a hostile place in regions where the sun's light can't reach. A hissing sound filled my ears as the O2 gauge refilled slowly and steadily. Light and color returned to my screen as Robin Ayou, Below Zero's star, eased herself back into the Seatruck's command chair.

While the whole world started fading away to darkness, I grasped wildly for the handle. Maybe I was toast? The O2 gauge hit zero just as I swam up to the submersible's hatch. The Seatruck still seemed impossibly far away. I swam straight and hard, watching the little oxygen meter at the bottom left corner of my screen tick down toward zero. The calm voice of my suit's AI robot assistant blared its always gentle but chillingly dire warning: '30 seconds of oxygen remaining.'

With my oxygen supply slipping past the point-of-no-return for safely getting back to my Seatruck submersible, I snatched up a couple of diamond deposits and sped back up toward safe harbor. But I really needed some diamonds, and at long last there it was. When you're 300 meters below the surface of an alien ocean and your nearest source of oxygen is half that distance away, you turn around when half your air is gone.

No crash powder in my subnautica game