Subnautica: Released (SPOILER WARNING past Post #1)

[Machocruz]

Per the Everquest example, I'd say Cataclysma: DDA and Project Zomboid are the "scariest" horror games I've played. Especially in the early game and starting off with a weak character build and wandering hordes turned on. Even later when you are buffed up, the monsters keep evolving into more dangerous forms.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Are we seriously arguing that Everquest is one of the most effective horror games?

Might as well argue that Quicken is effective horror software because there’s a possibility that I might make a mistake, end up getting audited, and owe the IRS thousands of dollars. Anxiety does not equal horror.

And yes Anvi, before you whine about it, I played EQ at launch (although I didn’t like it much and probably quit within ~4 months).

 

[anvi]

My point about EQ isn't about horror. It could be scary at times but it's not horror. Anxiety is very linked to horror, in Alien Isolation for example, the alien itself isn't scary to look at, it's the fact that you are forced to peak out from a cupboard or get murdered by it. That anxiety makes it scary not the visual aspect. Same with System Shock etc, I'm not very scared of a low-rez virtual zombie. But when I'm on low HP, no more bullets, and I have to face the zombie with my wrench, then it gets extra scary! Games can make you scared is my point, not just with scary monsters but with things like HP and the ability to die etc. You ideally need scariness and game mechanics together.

My point about EQ isn't about the horror. What I'm trying to explain about EQ is how off the charts it is in terms of content compared to other games, especially these new indie games. They had a small team and budget and were programming in machine code, but they made something that is very worthy of being called a sandbox. You could be a full time crafter, trader, adventurer, or mixture. 14 classes and so many spells there was 'emergent gameplay' happening with people figuring out things the devs never even thought of. Thousands of unique loot items, hard-coded flexible factions, unique cities for each race, in game books, etc. They somehow managed to make a LOT of content, and then they spread it all out so thinly and evenly that it took a long time to uncover it all. I played for a week in just the starting region before I went exploring one of the other 499 zones or whatever it had.

They went overboard with the grind and harshness in EQ but even if you removed all the grind, it's still a big game full of content that can keep you busy (and happy) for far longer than other games. That's what I think devs need to figure out in these survival games above anything else.

 

[anvi]

What's mainly on mind is how many development hours and dollars were spent on creating all the different fish, with names, graphics, and database of recipes for all of them and other materials you need to collect and combine to craft something. Plus a storyline and the voice overs and the fancy in game scripted event/cutscene where the space ship gets blown up. All this stuff takes major development time. And the whole base building aspect which is a biiiig deal. And the various vehicles must have been a massive job too.

It's all cool but was it worth it? People finish without barely using the base building and think the game is shallow and grindy. Would it have been any better if it had no crafting, no resources, make the whole thing story driven. Or focus on the base building which gets attacked by sea monsters and you defend it with turrets. Or it could be like Elite, you explore and mine and battle giant monsters with your battle sub that has a bunch of weapons that you upgrade. Which would pay off more?

 

[Joggerino]

Per the Everquest example, I'd say Cataclysma: DDA and Project Zomboid are the "scariest" horror games I've played. Especially in the early game and starting off with a weak character build and wandering hordes turned on. Even later when you are buffed up, the monsters keep evolving into more dangerous forms.

Project zomboid is really scary. Your perception depends on your health and mental status. So if you're sleepy you may not notice the zombie coming behind your back and you really feel like a cornered animal. Just trying to get to a safe place and not get eaten.

 

[Silva]

Are we seriously arguing that Everquest is one of the most effective horror games?

Might as well argue that Quicken is effective horror software because there’s a possibility that I might make a mistake, end up getting audited, and owe the IRS thousands of dollars. Anxiety does not equal horror.

I agree but then both elements are necessary, dread and mechanics. Tension and dread are crucial to the genre, but mechanics must support that with permadeath, permaloss or some degree of difficulty. This is Anvi's point I guess.

Subnautica nails both aspects pretty well IMO, but it's appeal really comes from the fact most people have some degree of thalassophoby. If you don't have it, the game's appeal vanishes and you better look for another thing to do with your time.

Perhaps that's Blaine case? But then he says he can't feel dread with any videogames, which makes me suspect it's another thing entirely. Perhaps he simply can't detach himself from his real life POV to exert the escapism necessary for immersive games. My wife is like that, she can't suspend her disbelief to enter fictional scenarios. That's one of the reasons she struggles with videogames, TTRPGs, etc.

 

[Zombra]

Yeah, what this boils down to is there is a spectrum of people who play horror games.

At one end you have "Oh my god, that thing is huge, it's dark, I better run! I hope I don't trip on something!"

At the other end you have "After several saves and reloads, I have determined that the creature's detection radius is 28 feet. As long as I stay at least 29 feet away, it cannot harm me. This game sucks, it isn't scary."

The closer you are to the first type, the more fun you will have in games like this, period.

 

[anvi]

Are we seriously arguing that Everquest is one of the most effective horror games?

Might as well argue that Quicken is effective horror software because there’s a possibility that I might make a mistake, end up getting audited, and owe the IRS thousands of dollars. Anxiety does not equal horror.

I agree but then both elements are necessary, dread and mechanics. Tension and dread are crucial to the genre, but mechanics must support that with permadeath, permaloss or some degree of difficulty. This is Anvi's point I guess.

Subnautica nails both aspects pretty well IMO, but it's appeal really comes from the fact most people have some degree of thalassophoby. If you don't have it, the game's appeal vanishes and you better look for another thing to do with your time.

Perhaps that's Blaine case? But then he says he can't feel dread with any videogames, which makes me suspect it's another thing entirely. Perhaps he simply can't detach himself from his real life POV to exert the escapism necessary for immersive games. My wife is like that, she can't suspend her disbelief to enter fictional scenarios. That's one of the reasons she struggles with videogames, TTRPGs, etc.

Yeah not necessarily permadeath but if the scary thing can't harm you then it's not that scary. 7 Days To Die does a decent job. I only play single player but it's cool, there's no savegame/reload so if you get killed you respawn without your gear and you lose experience. It only takes 10 minutes to get back on track but it's enough that if a zombie jumps out of a loft and starts biting you, you are scared and panicking at the same time.

But even then, the whole game is basically only 2 levels of enemy. The basic zombie you can easily kill by walking backwards and stabbing with your spear. And a tough boss type zombie which makes you reach for your guns. The game becomes a lot less scary and interesting once I figured this out after a few hours. That's where I think EQ provides lessons. Because it was a sort of similar experience but instead of 2 zombie types there are 10-20 different enemy types, biters, ranged, ranged magic, tanky slow melee, fast ones, summoners, etc. That adds far more variety and depth and stuff for you to get good at before it starts to become less scary. Then in addition to that, they made it so every 10 levels everything gets much harder and you go to new unfamiliar places and also get new abilities that you need to practice. And it was a month of playing and then you get another 10 levels in another place with some more new abilities to spice it up. It's like a game design math matrix way of making content and all developers should understand it.

 

[Joggerino]

Are we seriously arguing that Everquest is one of the most effective horror games?

Might as well argue that Quicken is effective horror software because there’s a possibility that I might make a mistake, end up getting audited, and owe the IRS thousands of dollars. Anxiety does not equal horror.

I agree but then both elements are necessary, dread and mechanics. Tension and dread are crucial to the genre, but mechanics must support that with permadeath, permaloss or some degree of difficulty. This is Anvi's point I guess.

Subnautica nails both aspects pretty well IMO, but it's appeal really comes from the fact most people have some degree of thalassophoby. If you don't have it, the game's appeal vanishes and you better look for another thing to do with your time.

Perhaps that's Blaine case? But then he says he can't feel dread with any videogames, which makes me suspect it's another thing entirely. Perhaps he simply can't detach himself from his real life POV to exert the escapism necessary for immersive games. My wife is like that, she can't suspend her disbelief to enter fictional scenarios. That's one of the reasons she struggles with videogames, TTRPGs, etc.

Yeah not necessarily permadeath but if the scary thing can't harm you then it's not that scary. 7 Days To Die does a decent job. I only play single player but it's cool, there's no savegame/reload so if you get killed you respawn without your gear and you lose experience. It only takes 10 minutes to get back on track but it's enough that if a zombie jumps out of a loft and starts biting you, you are scared and panicking at the same time.

But even then, the whole game is basically only 2 levels of enemy. The basic zombie you can easily kill by walking backwards and stabbing with your spear. And a tough boss type zombie which makes you reach for your guns. The game becomes a lot less scary and interesting once I figured this out after a few hours. That's where I think EQ provides lessons. Because it was a sort of similar experience but instead of 2 zombie types there are 10-20 different enemy types, biters, ranged, ranged magic, tanky slow melee, fast ones, summoners, etc. That adds far more variety and depth and stuff for you to get good at before it starts to become less scary. Then in addition to that, they made it so every 10 levels everything gets much harder and you go to new unfamiliar places and also get new abilities that you need to practice. And it was a month of playing and then you get another 10 levels in another place with some more new abilities to spice it up. It's like a game design math matrix way of making content and all developers should understand it.

In p. zomboid using your gun is almost a death sentence. Is attracts so many zombies that you get swarmed very quickly. Only situation to use it is when you have absolutely no other choice, and you have a vehicle ready to get the hell out of there.

 

[anvi]

That sounds cool! It happens in 7 days as well but only if enemies are nearby and hear it. And even then they are mostly easy to kill and half of them get stuck in walls and stuff.

 

[Joggerino]

That sounds cool! It happens in 7 days as well but only if enemies are nearby and hear it. And even then they are mostly easy to kill and half of them get stuck in walls and stuff.

7 days is first person after all, i think that limits them when it comes to numbers of enemies you have to face. In zomboid you have to be sneaky because you can get exhausted from swinging your axe or whatever else and you simply can't handle too many enemies. And the hordes are massive. Forget the shotgun, you'd need a flame tank to clear them.

 

[Blaine]

Let me clarify, since it's clear that I was misunderstood.

I specifically mentioned System Shock 2, Prey, and Alien: Isolation, knowing that between the three of them, everyone reading this thread has almost certainly played at least one of them.

I absolutely felt a sense of dread and fear at various points when playing these games, but as I specifically fucking mentioned earlier in the thread, you have to cooperate with the game to achieve immersion—unlike, say, if you were spelunking in a real-world cave system and your flashlight suddenly died (a situation that I've been in—what you do is pull out a nautical flare, glowstick, backup flashlight, etc.). I mention this because in that situation, there is absolutely no cooperation required on your part to "get in the mood." You will feel some fear, and justifiably so.

My point is that unless you're the type of person who is scared to go into your basement as an adult human being, you can simply bear in mind that any horror game is just a game and can be approached methodically, mechanically deconstructed—you know, that thing I was in the middle of explaining when you all forgot all the context and somehow leaped to the conclusion that I was claiming not to feel fear or something along those lines. The inability to feel fear is a mental disability. Fear is a very healthy emotion.

My overall point is that saying a game sucks as a horror game just because you can see through its mechanics is dumb. You can easily see through the mechanics of any game. Therefore, this bullshit subjective argument can be applied to any game.

That reminds me, though: when I realized that the Alien in Isolation cheated (i.e., is given your general location by the computer no matter what you do), the game lost some of its luster for me.

 

[Silva]

I absolutely felt a sense of dread and fear at various points when playing these games, but as I specifically fucking mentioned earlier in the thread, you have to cooperate

Most entertainment media requires cooperation/suspension of disbelief though, from movies to books to games.

My point is that unless you're the type of person who is scared to go into your basement as an adult human being, you can simply bear in mind that any horror game is just a game and can be approached methodically, mechanically deconstructed

But the capacity to engage in this medium in a "methodically and mechanically deconstructed way" will vary from person to person. See Subnautica and thalassophoby, for eg, which will trigger people prone to that specific fear more than others. Things are not cookie-cut as you suggest and most people will struggle to exert full rationality when engaging these games. That's even the appeal for some.

My overall point is that saying a game sucks as a horror game just because you can see through its mechanics is dumb.

We agree then.

 

[Israfael]

Finished both this and Below Zero after Breathedge, did like them much less than Breathedge. There are a few technical and gameplay reasons. First of all, this game is based on Unity and it runs like shit (for the graphics it generates), there's no real fullscreen mode (which is probably okay for people that play at 60 fps and on a single monitor/TV, but not for multi-monitor config and people extremely sensitive to the choppy frametimes that come with borderless fullscreen), it's still full of bugs (I lost my seamoth because it literally fell through the beach, got stuck several times in walls as well as floor of the moonbay, one of the alien teleporters somehow got deactivated). Also, this game has horrible TAA implementation, it feels like you are Paul Atreides or some person from Matrix that can see time (as in "everything is blurred to shit while moving"), and equally bad FXAA shader. Also, I'm probably more partial to spehss, but to me the lighting and the overall art style (Soviet chic) was much better in Breathedge (same goes for Arkane's Prey - many people here call Breathedge - "Prey in space")

Gameplaywise, I extremely did not like the fact that the game forces you to build the effing submarine (which I tried and went back to moving with the crisis battlesuit, it's faster, has unlimited power and can kill anything) to get a shitting module for one of the rocket stages (that was somewhat fixed in Below Zero, I did not have to build the new vehicle and explored everything in my power armor). Base buidling is surely better than what is offered in Breathedge, but it's not really necessary and not really integrated into the gameplay (apart from upgrades you can only build in a moonbay or with an upgrade station). I did away with a very rudimentary base (2 rooms + moonbay in the original, one room and moonbay in the expansion) that was built not that far away from the starting position (in the red grasses zone near the slope that leads to the toxic zone and shroom forest). The infamous sea monsters are either a non-issue (in the first game, as soon as you learn that they ignore you while you move close to the seafloor) or a stupid annoyance (that thing with the mouth in the middle of the body, it always destroyed my battemech when I disembarked and went for the alien cave in the crystalline cavern below 700m zone, had to spend 5 mins to kill it) that serves no gameplay reasons.

On the other hand, I really liked exploration in the original game (I had no issues navigating the game and getting all clues to what happened and what to do next) and Ben Prunty's music in the expansion. On the other hand, the plot in Sub Zero is mediocre at best (if you ignore "in-your-face" faux-progressive writing) and I had to search certain things in Wiki to just get over it. Instead of remaking the plot part of the game several times they should have invested into making a bigger map, better biomes and created something that would organically make you explore them.

 

[Zarniwoop]

"Many people" are retards then. Prey is already in space (both original and nuPrey)

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

many people here call Breathedge - "Prey in space"

I'm fairly active in both this thread and in the Prey thread, and I've lurked the Breathedge thread quite a bit... and I literally have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. I've never seen anyone equate those games. Is this perhaps a Google Translate error?

 

[dextermorgan]

I think he meant Subnautica in space. Maybe.

 

[Israfael]

I'm fairly active in both this thread and in the Prey thread, and I've lurked the Breathedge thread quite a bit... and I literally have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

Here = Russia, not the fair Codexia

"Many people" are retards then. Prey is already in space (both original and nuPrey)

They have to be, as it is mostly an impression taken from a bunch of youtube comments

 

[Israfael]

I think he meant Subnautica in space. Maybe.

What I meant is that typical players don't really 'explore' space in Prey, they just do the mandatory spacewalk that you have to do in the beginning of the game and then return back to station. So for them Breathege is a Prey clone, but in space.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I think he meant Subnautica in space. Maybe.

What I meant is that typical players don't really 'explore' space in Prey, they just do the mandatory spacewalk that you have to do in the beginning of the game and then return back to station. So for them Breathege is a Prey clone, but in space.

Breathedge is a survival game. Prey is a shooter (or by Codex definitions, an RPG) How the fuck can you compare the two?

 

[Israfael]

Breathedge is a survival game. Prey is a shooter (or by Codex definitions, an RPG) How the fuck can you compare the two?

Some zoomers freely compare BI Fallouts with Bethesda travesties and honestly believe that F3 and F4 are legit RPGs, and you ask how can they do that Most of them don't give a rat's ass about the gameplay and systems, they only pay attention to the plot, art style and muh graphix

 

[Zombra]

Some zoomers freely compare BI Fallouts with Bethesda travesties and honestly believe that F3 and F4 are legit RPGs, and you ask how can they do that Most of them don't give a rat's ass about the gameplay and systems, they only pay attention to the plot, art style and muh graphix

I'd love to see a link to any Codexer calling Breathedge a Prey clone, or Fallout 3 a Fallout 1 clone. I'll wait.

 

[Israfael]

I'd love to see a link to any Codexer calling Breathedge a Prey clone, or Fallout 3 a Fallout 1 clone. I'll wait.

As I said, im talking about russian youtube comments

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'd love to see a link to any Codexer calling Breathedge a Prey clone, or Fallout 3 a Fallout 1 clone. I'll wait.

As I said, im talking about russian youtube comments

Which brings us back to

"Many people" are retards then.

Otherwise a very informative write-up.

 

[Machocruz]

Finally finished the game. 33 hours, but felt like quite a journey. I had played a bit before (up until you need to board the Aurora), so I was able to rush the early game, otherwise it would have taken me longer. On the other hand, I didn't prepare as well as I should have for my initial excursions into and exploration of LR and ILZ, so rushing cost me time in the long run since I didn't take time to do things like build beacons to help me navigate, prep enough food and water (forcing me to backtrack more), etc.

I was trying to stick to the critical path, but I still probably built more things than necessary, just to put my mind at ease. Had a base at around 220m bordering kelp forest, grassy plains, and grand reef, and later another by the tree cove down in the Lost River. A second base may not have been necessary, especially if you have the Cyclops, but it made things more convenient and secure as I could stay down in the river indefinitely and craft from/store the abundant resources down there. Didn't build the sub until the game required it. I'm wondering if having one earlier would have saved me time, as I found traveling back and forth, up and down in the prawn suit to be an ordeal at times. I got a hand cramp from all the boosting and grappling.

Not once was I attacked by a reaper, even when it came close to me a couple times while drilling in the dunes. Ghost leviathans had a go at me a few times, but nothing the prawn suit couldn't handle. Sea dragon tossed me around a couple times, but again prawn suit. Warpers posed the greatest threat and annoyance, as due to poor visibility in the prawn suit, I'd often come within their aggro range unknowingly.

The necessary end game crafting and backtracking was indeed tedious. Build the launch pad, then two rocket parts, one of which required me to go back down to LR and ILZ for mats, then build the Cyclops to build the third part of the rocket, THEN travel back to mountain island (in my case, by traveling to the floater island and teleporting), walk around that motherfucker to do what you need (and not a short path either), AND THEN back to the launch pad. I think they could have come up with a better finale. Took the wind out of what should have been a cathartic end.

But overall I really liked this game. Thought about it at work, saw it in my sleep. They did a superb job designing the ocean geography and the flora and fauna, and replicating the immersive properties of such an environment. A lot of cool ideas for tech, some neat toys. I might go back into my last save at some point and mess around, build up my bases more, fight some leviathans. Don't know if I'd ever play from the beginning again. I see nothing that warrants it. It doesn't have random world generation nor rigorous survival sandbox systems like other game in its genre or similar. There are no real threats standing in the way of indefinite survival. There will always be food, water, and first aid easily available. You pretty much master how to manage your oxygen supply in your first run. Anything that can get you will stick to the same general area and can be avoided or dealt with the same general way. Cataclysm DDA it is not. Still, one of my favorite games of the past few years.