Story
The Alterra Corporation (a Trans-Goverment) claims Sam Ayou - one of their employees - perished in an accident caused by "human negligence" on planet 4546B. Suspecting that Alterra may be hiding something and wanting to know more about her sister's death, Robin travels to planet 4546B to investigate the accident site herself. Over the course of her investigation Robin gains an unlikely ally and uncovers buried secrets that could impact the fate of a sentient race.
Below Zero has two (or three, depending on how lookat it) story-lines going on at once. While the Aurora ship, Degasi wreck, and kharaa bacterium were all connected to how Ryley (Subnauntica protagonist) crash landed on 4546B and his fate afterwards, the individual plot threads of Below Zero are disjointed from each other and in some cases never properly get resolved. Too often Sam's story felt like a side mission rather than the main reason why Robin came to 4546B. The player learns about Sam primarily through data pads and Robin's own recollections of her. Fearing Alterra would use the frozen kharaa samples for ill purposes, Sam tried to cure something that already been cured (thanks to Ryley), and intentionally set the explosives that ultimately killed her and a co-worker (as Alterra said). The worst thing about Sam's character is how meaningless her actions are. She could've just secretly injected the antibody like Robin does. There was no need for the destruction. Oddly, the most important of the Sam data pads - the ones revealing her final moments, can be missed. Meaning it is possible to finish the game without ever finding out what happened to Sam.
Even with every data pad collected, Sam's story still took a backseat to Al-An (an alien) who was much more fleshed out. He is also a thematic continuation of Subnautica's story; a cyborg curious about humanity as much as the player probably was about the Architects in Subnautica. Assembling his body is mandatory and comparable to building the rocket in the first Subnautica. Marguerit was a great, if unnecessary addition. I don't know why Robin leaves her behind in the ending though. Marguerit is probably content with where she is. I just would have liked to say farewell or ask if she needed a ride. The Mercury II wreckage is one of the few non-organic points-of-interest underwater, I just wish it had been relevant to Robin's mission the same way the Degasi was to Ryley's. Where are its infected crew anyway? They are said to have been left in a cave somewhere, but where is it?
Gameplay
Subnautica is a survival game with four modes that will effect the difficulty:
- Survival: Health, hunger, thirst and oxygen have to be managed. Certain items are removed from the players inventory upon death.
- Freedom: Identical to Survival, but without hunger and thirst.
- Hardcore: Includes permadeath - save file is deleted.
- Creative: All depleting characteristics are removed, all blueprints are unlocked, and the player can craft without needing resources.
During the normal survival mode the player will need to surface for oxygen, or enter a base or vehicle with an air supply. Like most survival games, food will need to acquired from catching small fish and drinkable water will be obtained with filtration systems. The world size is a fraction of the first game's, but Below Zero makes up for it by having more densely populated and vibrant environments. The downside is that the water is no longer "open". The player is usually going to have an ice wall to either side of them and will be able to see the ocean floor, creating a sense of safety. In addition to being less open, the environments have a good amount of verticallity, with some having upper and lower regions. However, these have a tendency to become needlessly labyrinthine.
Materials are more abundant but ore veins and recipes have been altered, and in some cases have become unbalanced. For example, caves full of large deposits of silver, gold, and kyanite are not uncommon. But lead, which is used in most sea truck modules, advanced base construction (moonpool, modification station, nuclear reactor), and in the new recipe for enameled glass, is difficult to find. Large deposits of lead have also been removed. Mid/late-game recipes often require ingredients from the starting areas, usually in their raw state - not processed into a chemical or electronic.
The base building is where Below Zero excels. Most of the previous game's base modules have been supplemented with a host of new ones: clear roofs, larger rooms, dividing walls, bathroom items, and a jukebox. The added customization options are a welcome addition, even if very few serve a function other than as decoration. Blueprints for new tools, vehicles, and items are acquired by scanning the junk Alterra left behind. Unfortunately, Below Zero is not as dependent on player crafted items as its predecessor was. Many functional craftables, such as the first-aid dispenser, radio, cyclops, stasis rifle, and non-craftable decorative items (beakers, plush toys) have been stripped out. What advanced materials were left-in have pitifully few uses, with some, such as Benzene and Hydraulic Acid, required in only a single recipe.
The new sea truck vehicle takes the best aspects of the cyclops submarine and seamoth and crams them into one. The player can not build inside of the seatruck like you could with the cyclops, so it can not be customized to the same extent, but the player can pick and choose which modules they wish to attach - storage, fabricator, aquarium, bedroom, or vehicle dock, allowing it to serve as a base-on-the-go. The seatruck is small and fast on its own, similar to the seamoth. However, the more modules the player attaches the longer and slower it gets. Although, this can be mitigated with upgrades. The prawn suit returns, but outside of mining ore it is largely irrelevant.
Unlike in Subnautica where the story progression was limited by depth, Below Zero has no such progression barriers, making it possible to proceed out of order or to miss things entirely. The few deep caverns that exist are not interconnected with the rest of the world and do not house anything particularly interesting. Aside from the pretty crystalline formations and kyanite, the player has no reason to visit to this region other than for quest reasons (which easily could have been moved elsewhere). The variety of Subnautica's deeper depths: alkaline brine pools, lava zone, and bioluminescent tree, just aren't here. I wish the developers hadn't bothered with it. It's clear that they either had no passion or resources for the 600 to 1000 meter range habitat and that it was included only because the fans expected it. Below Zero is more about exploring the surface world and life around ice floes rather than the ocean depths.
20% of the game takes place on land, where the new hypothermia mechanic comes into play. To stay warm above water, Robin needs to stand near heat-generating plants or steam vents. The hovering snowfox vehicle also provides protection against the cold and swift transportation around the snowy landscape. However, the snowfox can be finicky over uneven surfaces. Ice Worms, found in only one area the player has to visit for a single story-related scan, feel like they were included arbitrarily to force the player to use the new land vehicle. This was easily my least favorite part of Below Zero, because every time the worm attacks, the player is ejected from the snowfox in the oddest way. For a while I thought I was pressing a wrong button by accident or that the game might be bugged.
Subnautica was about desperation and surviving the unknown; the protagonist was thrust onto an unfamiliar planet unprepared. Below Zero is about exploration and discovery; the protagonist voluntarily arrives well prepared and with some skill/knowledge of what they are getting into. The story wasn't as mysterious or gripping as the first Subnautica, and may have suffered from a change of writers, but it serves its purpose. It should have been longer, more involved and ended more cleanly. There are a lot of dangling pieces left over from various story re-writes, such as Sam's necklace and her room "not being right" that leave the plot feeling unfinished or as if something had been missed.
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