![subnautica below zero subnautica below zero](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71Lx5RJ8hPL._SL1500_.jpg)
Take titanium for example, the game literally has a joke in it about titanium being comically easy to find and duh, it's the first material you use, but a few hours in you'll find salvage which you can pick up with a hint that says "can be recycled into titanium", cool so this must be a more efficient method of gathering titanium at the expense of it being bulky, right? Wrong! It takes up 4 slots in your inventory and gives you how much titanium? Well 4, which takes up (wait for it) 4 slots in your inventory, So it's titanium with an extra step and in fact it's actually WORSE than gathering regular titanium because salvage has to be arranged in a square pattern in your non-stacking inventory. By far, the most frustrating thing about this game is that all of the designs problems are about one small change away from being great. It was cute back in Subnautica 1, but now its 2021 and I don't have the patience for a non-stacking inventory system, one-item-at-a-time crafting(WHY!?), manually hunting out blueprint fragments because the scanning room has *never* been helpful in this regard. After a decade of experience as a company, I'm surprised that this game still feels like amateur work. Truthfully, I love the world that the game presents to me, but I fear I am now too old to deal with all of the inconsistencies in Unknown World's design.
#Subnautica below zero Patch
I wasn't an hour in to the game before I had to summon forth the console (Shift+Enter by the way and that info is only available in a bloody PATCH NOTE) in order to warp myself out of a stuck spot because despite having half a decade of development time to improve things, gravity and collision is apparently still a problem. the recipes are the same, the oxygen mechanic is the same, you'll hunt for peepers and bladderfish just like you did back in the first game it hasn't changed one iota and it sets a precedent for a new story told with the same tired, old, engine. You would be forgiven for confusing it with the first game at a glance, especially in the first 2-4 hours of play as it's the same game. Subnautica: Below Zero presents a serviceable story and interesting arctic alien zone yet does virtually nothing to improve the dated gameplay mechanics it established back in 2014. I know people who paid and supported the alpha for this game, and if this was Subnautica 1 I would say their patience and money was well I know people who paid and supported the alpha for this game, and if this was Subnautica 1 I would say their patience and money was well rewarded. I'd think of it more like an expansion though. It's fine but could have been done a lot better. That being said the core gameplay is still good, so 6/10 for me. I just didn't feel anything this time around, the epicness of the soundtrack of the 1st was missing, the sheer horror from the unknown was missing (because everything was re-used there is no "unknown"), the stories didn't get tied up but are rather left to interpretation. Overall I enjoyed the core gameplay loop that was already established and proven to work in Subnautica. Seatruck is a **** seamoth that gets stuck everywhere. Caves are much smaller and you constantly bump into things. You have the same enemies with the same AI, doing the same thing, except they are reskinned. I couldn't connect with the MC at all and unfortunately their decision to move from a neutral character that the player feels represents himself to a predetermined character meant I didn't experience any horror at all this time around. The story and music was weaker in my opinion, despite them adding a meetable NPC and voice acting. Most of the content is above 400meters with minor exceptions in the endgame.
![subnautica below zero subnautica below zero](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lbTuzUWPcYA/maxresdefault.jpg)
![subnautica below zero subnautica below zero](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/subnautica-arctic/images/2/2c/Sea_Truck_Vehicles.png)
Size wise it's also much smaller than the base game / first game. Too little changes for me unforunately, I would have loved to see totally new enemies, totally new fish, new items to craft! Oh well. Flora and Fauna is pretty much the same except altered to be the "ice-version". Mechanically, it's pretty much the same as Subnautica, with very minor alterations. Mechanically, it's pretty much the same as Subnautica, with very This felt much more like an expansion/addon rather than a standalone-game. This felt much more like an expansion/addon rather than a standalone-game.