Analysis: The Message of Subnautica

Subnautica is a game in the sandbox and exploration genre where the protagonist falls from a spaceship on a completely unknown planet, with no prospect of a rescue occurring. The situation is even more complex since the planet is completely aquatic, terrestrial space is pretty much minimal, and only using your tools and discoveries of new resources can you make it possible to survive, and coexist with the fauna and flora of the environments.

The game has been awarded in several instances, in 2018 it was chosen for the Fan Favorite Indie Game category of the Gamers’ Choice Awards, in addition to winning the PC Game of the Year category at the Golden Joystick Awards. Not only this merit, the game also brings plot and mechanics that strongly defend the ecologist vision of its authors, which is also a highlight. The premise, in short, is that we as species are capable of co-living in an environment, without our development necessarily exceeding the ecological barriers that allow this habitat to exist in harmony.

As said, the basis of the sandbox and exploration genre here takes advantage of action and adventure mechanics within a survival game. It’s necessary to get to know, analyze and explore places never seen before, and which must now be put on the map. You, as a human being, must manage your hunger, life, thirst as well as oxygen if you are underwater, which is where 95% of the game takes place.

The primary tool to be made with the starting materials is the Scanner, used throughout the game in its entirety. By pointing it at materials for a set time, especially species of fish and corals, it’s possible to obtain information about the biology and physiology of the subject being investigated, which allows us to consider its uses: a great example is Bladderfish, a herbivorous species, less active at night, which can be used to produce filtered water, or eaten to restore some points of your oxygen.

Throughout your advancement, new technologies will be discovered, as well as transmissions from other survivors will be detected, and it becomes useful to investigate them to acquire technologies that we do not have yet. However, all you have in terms of clues are just transmissions with vague information about the location of other “Escape Pods” like yours, and it’s up to the player to know how to orient themselves with a compass (if it has already been built) to get to that destination. Again, here we have a choice made deliberately by the developers: there is no mission structure, but rather, some trails, options which the player can investigate for their own merit and pleasure; This philosophy allows both exploration and investigation to be enjoyable based on the player's own interest, and not a guided line that needs to be followed.

There are those who say that Subnautica has a horror aspect to its exploration, and this is completely justifiable. Some fauna animals have echolocation abilities, and, among other things that can scare you besides descending to a depth of 300m in just a suit in complete darkness, are the vocalizations of aggressive animals.

Animals in the Leviathan Class, classified as an imminent risk to life when found, are territorial, and it’s possible to hear them from far away from their region. However, even this feeling of fear reflects the difficulty we have in living in environments that are unfamiliar to us; As we progress, we discover technologies on how to distract and protect ourselves from these animals, in addition to mapping their favorite regions, and thus, the fear of them goes away, and there is a certain harmony in that.

In Subnautica, we only have two tools that are considered weapons, but are used as defense and survival mechanisms: the knife, which can be improved into a thermal knife, and is used both to collect materials such as corals, and to catch small fish to feed yourself with; and the stasis rifle, which keeps any object in place through the charge of the shot, which makes it useful for scanning aggressive species (such as the colossals of the Leviathan Class). It’s possible to use the rifle with the knife to kill extremely threatening animals, however, there are no rewards for doing so. In other words, it’s made clear that the objective is not to eliminate what does not coexist well with human beings, but rather to understand how to coexist peacefully, another reinforcement of the ecologist vision.

Since a large aspect of the game is exploration, and the story cannot be left out because it reinforces the importance of environmental preservation, I must warn you that there will be spoilers in this section. A millennium before the events of the game, an ancient and super-developed species known as the Precursors arrived on the planet known as 4546B, to acquire a cure for an infection caused by the bacteria Kharaa. After going to several different planets in search of this formula, only in this environment where the game takes place existed a species, known as Leviathan Emperor of the Sea, in which there was an enzyme capable of curing Kharaa. However, there was only one living individual of the species, unable to produce this enzyme due to senility; only with the hatching of their eggs would that become possible.

After multiple failures in this hatching, due to the aggressive research method with the species, the researchers decided to study another species of Leviathan, the Sea Dragon, and obtained an egg from this species. The mother tracked down the study laboratory, destroying the entire structure to recover the egg, and thus the bacteria ends up being spread across the planet, infecting even more individuals. In a final defense, the Precursors quarantine the planet, installing a cannon capable of shooting down any ship that tries to approach or leave the planet; And so, the story of Subnautica begins, where we crash after our ship, the Aurora, is hit by this cannon.

The game is a favorite among sandbox and exploration fans, as there is a vast freedom of options and paths that can be taken. Subnautica, even though being a game released in 2018, brings current themes and questionings about our species' relationship with different ecosystems.