Dear
team-behind-Subnautica-Below-Zero,
Ben
Sonnek here, longtime Subnautica fan, currently hooked by the in-development Subnautica Below Zero. Here’s a quick summary
of this letter: gushing praise, a couple concerns, and an idea.
Let’s
start with the praise.
I’ve
enjoyed UnknownWorlds’ survival games since the first Subnautica was still in its beta
version. There were no alien bases implemented yet, the Seamoth submarine was a
recent invention, and my old laptop could hardly keep up with the graphics so
the water looked like a wavy blue quilt. However, my love of sci-fi and
aquariums convinced me to buy the game soon after I saw the first ad on Steam, and I haven’t
regretted it since, especially after I upgraded laptops and can see the water
properly (and the framerate doesn’t plummet when a leviathan is around, an
occasion that has led to many Seamoth maulings).
Then
the beta for Subnautica Below Zero got released.
Needless
to say, I have not regretted that purchase either. Now I have the unique
privilege of being with this project from more-or-less the beginning, and I
like the game’s look and what I’ve seen of the story so far.
FYI,
I’m writing this letter between the Seatruck update and whatever update is
slated to come next. Here are some cues as to how far I’ve gotten in the story
so far:
Now,
Part 2: the concerns.
First,
I might ask you to pay all gamers’ PTSD therapy bills once you apply the
leviathan-class predators to the game. I’ve seen the concept art.
Second
(and last), I wonder about your choice to make Robin speak. (To any other readers not
familiar with Subnautica Below Zero, Robin is the character whom you play in
the game.)
See,
I can’t remember the name of the main character in the first Subnautica game unless
I look it up—and I consider that a good thing. That poor unfortunate diver
never said anything except for grunts of pain, usually because of those
friggin’ Crashfish. I liked that a lot as a player; you could project onto the
guy more easily if he said nothing and we supplied the voice lines. You felt
like you were him, wincing when the
edges of the screen went red from an injury. It was like playing an underwater version
of Chell from
Portal 2,
another of my all-time favorite games.
Robin,
while an enjoyable character, has conversations with her sister in an overhead
space station. Part of the thrill of the first Subnautica was that the
character, a crash survivor, was on his own and with minimal backup. You don’t
get that when Robin is making cutesy remarks to her unseen sister. Plus, about
those remarks—while the first Subnautica protagonist was project-able with his
silence, Robin’s dialogue could rub some players a little weird. I know this is
very much an early-development concern; hey, I remember a lot of voice logs
changing before the final release of Subnautica 1.0. Still, I’d like to address
the issue. A lot of games give the first-person character dialogue, I know, but
after using a silent protagonist in the first game…is it a wise choice now?
Maybe.
I can’t always oppose a fresh take on something. Subnautica itself was a fresh
take on survival games.
However,
before Below Zero goes deeper into development—minor pun not intended—I wanted
to slide this concept past you first, a concept that mostly maintains
everything Below Zero has set up so far:
What
if we players were Alan, the alien AI?
(Again,
for those of you not familiar with Below Zero and didn’t read that PDA
screenshot up there, Robin accidentally downloads an alien AI into her head in
the game. The AI’s seed code is Al-An, so Robin calls it Alan.)
Anyway,
here’s the picture: the game starts with the black screen and the “Unknown
Worlds presents” text, like the first Subnautica. Unlike the first Subnautica,
though, the sound you hear with the black screen is not the sound of an
exploding spaceship. It’s the sound of an alien computer booting up.
The
screen fades in, revealing the inside of an alien facility. The player can’t
move, but instead watches Robin enter and activate the console. BAM—and the
player can see from Robin’s perspective. We can move around as her. We can also
hear her dialogue, freaking out over how she can control her mind and mouth…but
not her muscles.
The
player, playing as the downloaded alien AI, has taken those over. We become an
AI that has control of a human host.
Think
about it: the AI could have no memory of itself or its functions, like the
player. It would also know nothing of Robin, again like the player. The AI and
Robin would have to work together to solve the mystery of this section of
Planet 4546B, learning more about each other while not alerting Alterra that
one of their own is being controlled by alien tech. This way, Robin can keep
her dialogue while not contradicting whatever the players are thinking. As the
silent AI, we’re free to roll our eyes, laugh, and/or give the thumbs-up, not
jolt out of character because Robin said something quippy when her controlling
gamer would rather hide in a snowbank. If the AI has no lines, we players will
naturally add our own, like we do in the first Subnautica.
The
aliens couldn’t communicate in human language in the first game, and I was a
little wary about their technology’s voice lines in Below Zero’s early release.
Don’t get me wrong, they sound awesome, but I felt a little of the alien
mystique was lost with their first words to humans. If the player were a silent
AI, the mystique remains, and part of the story could be Robin figuring out how
to converse with the alien being possessing the majority of her motor
functions.
As
a final point, I think the player-as-Alan angle would add a unique tension to
the game. As the AI, players cannot explain themselves to the host and will
sympathize with her unique plight. When diving into harm’s way, it will be like
driving your best friend’s car through a demolition derby; you don’t want to
hurt yourself or your friend. You
have to pray that, as the story goes, Robin trusts your actions more, maybe
moving into the relationship of grudging friendship—although that won’t stop
her from strongly questioning your
sanity when you have to dive into deeper, darker regions of the sea. Maybe the
gameplay can give the AI-player and Robin a chance to communicate through, I
don’t know, computer prompts or something. The twists write themselves: the
player learns about Robin through voice lines and data logs—while also learning
about the AI host’s history. Maybe the possessing alien program was
decommissioned and memory-wiped for mismanaging the disease from the first
Subnautica story, or something like that.
Then,
the ending! As a semi-reversal of the first Subnautica, in which the player
left via rocket, the player-AI in Below Zero could leave Robin and allow her to
escape in a rocket on her own, watching the smoke trail leave the planet’s
atmosphere.
Anyway,
that’s my idea, and I think it has plenty of room for an Unknown Worlds spin
that will blow everyone’s mind. Take it or leave it; I won’t be heartbroken if
Below Zero’s plans are set in stone already. Looking at Subnautica 1.0, I have
no cause to worry about 2.0’s trajectory. To wrap it up here, keep up the good
work. To inspire you, here’s one of my most encouraging Subnautica screenshots
of all time:
No!
Wait! I meant this one. My bad.
Whether
or not you read this…thanks for everything!
(Note from a few days later: Forget the thanks. The
Snowfox update just came out, and...how many nightmares did you guys have to harvest to make the Chelicerate leviathan? Really???)
