Subnautica

I think I played this for the first time in like April 2018 and bounced off. The first time I got maybe 4 hours in, started to explore the deeper parts, saw a large mass in the darkness and a lots of screeching and weird noises and NOPE'd the fuck out because I have a fear of the ocean. Truly a terrifying game.

This time I went in and stuck with it. And man what a good choice that was. The other good choice I made this time was to turn off the drinking/eating survival elements. They add extra tedium to the game with no real payoff. It's just another meter to have to maintain by carrying a bunch of extra resources and probably just serves to make the game drag on with no real fun being added.

The game is amazing because the exploration mixed with the challenge of managing your air supply and resources. Exploring a new area and only having like 30 seconds of oxygen left creates a level of tension that makes those moments much more exciting than they would be otherwise. And they do a great job of adding rewards at every corner. Whether it's as basic as discovering new resources or as exciting as finding a new recipe for something that will allow you to swim deeper or travel faster.

The technology and upgrade curve is so great too. You start off just swimming with very little oxygen which limits the extent to which you can explore to a small area around either the starting pod or the bases you build. Then you get a little thing that makes you swim much faster but you have to build batteries. Then you get a ship, the Moonmoth, a total game changer because it's fast AND it allows you to get your breath back. The way the game opens up as you get more and more tech and the more tech allows you to get more resources which allow you to get more tech is a great gameplay loop.

Of course if that was all there was to the game I would have likely bounced off. Along with this they added a cool story. You discover crashed pods and old abandoned settlements with little codex entries and recordings giving you a glimpse into other people who wrecked on the planet and slowly revealing that this is a planet that aliens landed on to research the cure to a virus that destroyed much of their civilization.

All in all I'm really happy I went back to this game because it was a ton of fun and I was solidly addicted to it for like 2 weeks.