It was super disappointing in many regards, sure. But only compared to the extremely lofty heights of Subnautica. Years later, Below Zero is still easily the second-most-atmospheric survival game I’ve played. It’s huge problem - that the on-land sections don’t work in how they were shown before release and were clearly intended because access to heat is way too readily available and easy to trivialize - cuts deep into it since it takes a huge chunk of atmosphere out (and the on-land part looks pretty bad, it was clearly relying on the terror of having to warm up again quickly). But, even with that, the water parts close the wound up. Deep Arctic is even worse thalassophobia than the crater edge in the first game!
Sure, it’s disappointing and meh compared to the first game, but that’s just a too high bar to clear. I’d advise to not expect this game to clear it, either. Like you said, Subnautica 1 was kinda lightning-in-a-bottle. Compared to a 100/100, even a 98/100 would feel disappointing. 💡
Trailer looks decent enough. Seems to lean strongly into the horror elements, which might be overdone, but also, it’s kinda what Subnautica 1 made a splash with, how strongly it triggered thalassophobia before munching you as a giant sea snake.
Ah yes, I hate being butchered that way, too. It sucks hard to be paid to leave before you get paid extra to start your next job elsewhere.
And don’t get me wrong, if the C-suites actually ever had to take actual responsibility for their fuck-ups, I’d be all for those board investigations. But they don’t. They get paid enough to not care about interims between jobs - just look at the CEO who said people can just spend a year on the beach or so if they’ve been laid off - plus they get paid extra both on the leaving and on the re-hiring.
If they had to pay all non-salary money back on fucking up, even retroactively, no matter how many Porsches they’d have to liquidate to get the money from X years of fucking up the company back, sure. Do it. But that’s just sadly not the case. For a C-suite, this just means changing what name is written under your name, and moving on to the next place you can grift.
So after immediately getting it and going through a few settlements, wow did this patch break my muscle memory hard.
I was panicked-looking for my Geyser Pumps and my Rain Collectors. (they’re under gathering now)
The new stuff seems all awesome. Fishing Huts are an interesting change of pace since you can haul in the nets early but that instantly depletes the node. Frogs are fascinating and a giant headache, being unable to be housed in non-specialized homes. The change on Foxes to no longer be rainwater-specialized makes the races feel more balanced. The new recipe combinations are weird as hell (again, all muscle memory gone) but seem balanced so far.
It cannot be front and center and normal at the same time.
Why not? If it’s normal, any possible identity and any possible element will be front and center every so often, no? That’s what normality means after all? Something has to be front and center, and if everything is normal, everything will appear there repeatedly?
So this then begs the question, why are people decrying games as “woke” trying so hard to push their political agenda into gaming discussions? After all, as per point 1 + point 3, the game was already criticized/panned anyways, then someone came in and tries to push the critique onto a political level instead of a game one.