I'd love for them to really get what made the first one great and expand on it, but the previous game showed that I don't think they really did (and also got lost in a bunch of gimmicks). They're...
I'd love for them to really get what made the first one great and expand on it, but the previous game showed that I don't think they really did (and also got lost in a bunch of gimmicks).
They're really on the crux of something wonderful, and I'm sorta surprised someone else hasn't beaten them to it at this point with how badly they've fumbled.
I fear that some of the high points of the first game could have been accidental. The reaper leviathans are absolutely terrifying in the early game, and before you get better gear they can do a...
I fear that some of the high points of the first game could have been accidental. The reaper leviathans are absolutely terrifying in the early game, and before you get better gear they can do a lot of damage if you have the misfortune of meeting one. I made the mistake of going behind the Aurora with only a seaglide, and barely made it out alive. I didn't even see the reaper in that case, because the roar made me nope right out. As I was frantically speeding toward the shallows, the reaper nicked me slightly from behind and took half my health. I was too afraid to look behind me until I was all the way back inside the pod. That encounter was enough to make me avoid reaper areas for the rest of the game.
The other leviathans just weren't as scary to me. Ghost leviathans are actually quite pretty, and I always felt the sea dragons looked sort of silly. This makes me think that the dev/design team stumbled across what made the reapers such good enemies. I'm not sure if they'll be able to recreate the magic this time around. I hope I'm wrong though. I would love to have the magic of Subnautica recreated so I can enjoy it once more. :)
The reaper was truly terrifying. I too was in a seamoth behind the aurora, I felt safe because the water was shallow with reasonable visibility. It got me before I even saw it. Suddenly I'm in...
The reaper was truly terrifying. I too was in a seamoth behind the aurora, I felt safe because the water was shallow with reasonable visibility.
It got me before I even saw it.
Suddenly I'm in it's jaws, and it crushes my seamoth. I barely escaped with my seaglide.
After that, explorations were always tense. Always terrifying.
I feel like there were a few games around the same time that effectively hooked into the environment as a major antagonist, and built the game around mechanics interacting with that stressor. Both...
I feel like there were a few games around the same time that effectively hooked into the environment as a major antagonist, and built the game around mechanics interacting with that stressor. Both Subnautica and The Long Dark did it very well in their own ways, and many games have failed to make the environment truly take the leap from set dressing to being a character.
Personally what i'd like to see them work on would be: The back half feeling rushed (because it was) The "threats" not really being threats. I get that for balance this makes some sense, but a...
Personally what i'd like to see them work on would be:
The back half feeling rushed (because it was)
The "threats" not really being threats. I get that for balance this makes some sense, but a "hard mode" would have been great for that game.
In relation to "hard mode" giving us a reason to actually use some of the tools they made. There's all sorts of stuff that most players will never use that's got really interesting gameplay implications, but since the game is easy enough to just use the obvious stuff, you'll never touch it.
And in some ideal world, biome randomization. I don't think you can get a great map without it being hand crafted, but having a way to link the biomes in different orders, and randomize where the tech pieces are, would do a lot to help replayablity.
I have hope the extended time for 2 will get them back on track. BZ wasn't terrible, it lacked enough dev time to really shine and scrap the bad ideas and discover new good ones. They've had a lot...
I have hope the extended time for 2 will get them back on track. BZ wasn't terrible, it lacked enough dev time to really shine and scrap the bad ideas and discover new good ones. They've had a lot of time with this one so i think they'll get this one right
Loved the first game and bought the second as soon as it was available in EA. I'm not going to do that this time, for a couple reasons. First off, my experience with Below Zero's early access...
Loved the first game and bought the second as soon as it was available in EA. I'm not going to do that this time, for a couple reasons.
First off, my experience with Below Zero's early access leads me to think this just isn't the sort of game that is best played EA, or else Unknown Worlds has lost the thread of how to develop such a game in EA. With BZ, biomes seemed to be more or less finished one after the other, with new biomes being pasted in as finished with very little development of or integration with the previously "finished" areas. This led the map to feel even more patchwork than in the previous title, and meant that as you played through the various updates there was no incentive to start over from scratch, because you'd just be retreading ground you'd covered before. This was only exacerbated by the questionable decision to focus on dry land exploration rather than in depth (both literally and figuratively).
The end product of BZ almost totally lacked the verticality of the first, which is important when the entire atmosphere of your world is predicated on thalassophobia. Much of the power of the first title lies in that instinctual anxiety that one feels when they're hovering over a watery abyss, with God only knows what monstrosity lurking in the depths beneath. In Below Zero, you knew what was beneath: mostly a sandy sea floor, or else a glacier. There was very little to grab the player by the viscera and engage them.
Then there's the narrative decisions. Oh my, the narrative decisions! The only issues I really had with the protagonist was the decision to replace the original VA–who I felt had a Freema Agyeman in Doctor Who-like vibe, and I thought did pretty well with the material she was given–and the quality of the characterization itself. I see a lot of people criticizing the choice to have a voiced protagonist at all, which I don't think is really the issue. A voiced protag with something actually interesting to say would've been fine, in my opinion, but that's not what we got. She ended up having pretty much no defining characteristics–not even a cool accent, in the end–and the story she was involved in was rather trite and didn't really have anything new to say. It made the choice to characterize her feel more like a marketing choice rather than an organic result of having a story and character UW wanted to show us. Outside of the troll brigade's usual gripes when they see a female person-of-color in a video game, I think this was the real root of people's dislike of the protag in BZ.
Then there's the other protag, Zoots MaGoots, or whatever his comically quotidian name was. He's an alien intelligence forcibly crammed into the main protagonist's mind, so now they have to find a way to transfer his consciousness into a separate body so he can go home.
I loathed Zoots. I think they were aiming for a fish out of water (get it?), super smart but socially inept, wisecracking sidekick kind of thing, but they failed. Hard. He didn't feel endearingly naive, he felt like a condescending asshole who lived in your brain. The fact that I can describe what they were trying to do with him in storytelling cliches, but in the same breath say they failed, should tell you all you need to know about him and the rest of the writing for that matter.
The biggest problem of all though is that they had the opportunity to really flesh-out and develop mechanics that were great about the first game but felt incomplete, and they chose instead to introduce new mechanics that they left feeling incomplete. I'm talking about the mechanics that still drive people to play the original today, such as base-building, resource gathering, crafting, and cataloguing alien species. Those were fantastic ideas, but the execution of them in the first game never really felt as deep and engaging as they could've been.
Base building was far too modular and inflexible, and didn't really give the player the tools or incentive to build something unique. You've seen one big Subnautica base, you've pretty much seen them all. I see this as a big issue, because I always wanted to build a unique, sprawling undersea complex like some kind of tunnel at SeaWorld, but with alien creatures swimming about in bizarre seascapes outside a big picture window. It didn't feel like either game wanted to allow me to do that. Hard clipping limits and the almost total reliance on pre-designed modular rooms meant you built bases kind of like how the ISS was built, which may be realistic and all, but doesn't give your creativity full rein. This is an especial problem with a modern sequel, since so many fantastic games have been developed since the first that took inspiration from Subnautica's base building and did it so much better. Here I'm thinking primarily of Satisfactory, but you could point at a half dozen or more games with base building mechanics that are much better developed than either Subnautica title.
Crafting likewise changed little between games, outside of a couple of new products that could be made. There was no attempt to introduce automation of any sort, and with nothing but a handful of tertiary products the player only needs to build once and never again, there's really no need for it. They pretty much did nothing new with the concept whatsoever, so it feels like something they included simply because they had it in the first game.
I generally dislike quantifying game quality, but gun to my head, I'd give BZ a C+. It's not bad, but fails to live up to the promise of a sequel to the first game by not really taking the concept in a new direction. To be fair to Unknown Worlds, they told us not to think of Below Zero as a true sequel (hence, presumably, this entry's name), but then they failed almost totally in justifying BZ's existence at all. If they were burning to give us a more narratively focused experience and that's why they didn't bother to develop the mechanics much, then why didn't they write a story that was actually worth the telling? It feels like they decided first that they wanted to make a more narratively focused game, and then the story came later, which seems bass-ackwards. You're a game studio. Unless you have a story you think the world needs to hear, you should probably focus on the game first.
We haven't seen really anything about what direction UW wants to take the gameplay, but unless they've genuinely taken the criticisms people had of the second game seriously and re-examine where their strengths as a developer lie, I'm not particularly interested in where they'll take it.
These are all valid criticisms of BZ, but I think the problem that most people are having is that theyre looking at BZ as a separate game where its more of a spinoff/could've been a DLC that grew...
These are all valid criticisms of BZ, but I think the problem that most people are having is that theyre looking at BZ as a separate game where its more of a spinoff/could've been a DLC that grew a bit bigger than a DLC so became its own standalone thing.
I think if you look at it through that lens it makes a lot more sense on most of why those mechanics and gameplay were not innovated on very much.
I think this being a full blown sequel will go more that direction with expanding and innovating those systems.
I addressed that in my comment. As I said, they were clear long before launch that BZ wasn't to be viewed as a full sequel, but then why did it exist? There were next to no new mechanics...
I addressed that in my comment. As I said, they were clear long before launch that BZ wasn't to be viewed as a full sequel, but then why did it exist? There were next to no new mechanics introduced that weren't thin retreads of mechanics that already existed in the first. The drone pengling was essentially just the camera drones from the first, but less useful. The hoverbike wasn't nearly as fun to drive as the Seamoth, and you could only ride it in a small sandbox with nothing much to do. The new biomes weren't as distinct as the originals and didn't add much to the exploration element, since they weren't woven together as well as the some of the biomes in the first.
I guess what I'm saying is, why wasn't Below Zero a proper sequel? Why didn't they try to make it one, instead of making what seems to be a rushed reskin of the original? I'm sure they had their reasons, but the fact that I don't know them doesn't fill me with the confidence I need to plunk down early access money.
My biggest gripes with BZ is that its narrative impetus robs the game world of its majesty. In vanilla, the world is unknown, beautiful, mysterious, but dangerous. You want to get the f out. In...
My biggest gripes with BZ is that its narrative impetus robs the game world of its majesty. In vanilla, the world is unknown, beautiful, mysterious, but dangerous. You want to get the f out. In BZ, you know that people can live there, because you're looking for you sister. So while the world may be hostile, you know that it can be tamed at least for a little while.
Also the leviathan reaper is a biological embodiment of death (and wouldn't be out of place in a tyranid army), while the chelicarate are... big shrimps ?
I agree with your points for the most part, however, while I do enjoy the base building freedom of other crafting games, I liked the modular approach of Subnautica. Maybe it was more of an...
I agree with your points for the most part, however, while I do enjoy the base building freedom of other crafting games, I liked the modular approach of Subnautica. Maybe it was more of an immersion factor for me, not that I tend to create complex or interesting bases when playing these type of games.
I thought Below Zero was fine, but it was not anywhere near as good as the first game upon replaying it. A major aspect of Subnautica that I loved was the feeling of bitter isolation. The lack of...
I thought Below Zero was fine, but it was not anywhere near as good as the first game upon replaying it. A major aspect of Subnautica that I loved was the feeling of bitter isolation. The lack of any other living person in the game and the lack of a voiced protagonist compounded in this feeling of total helplessness and fear that really played into my thalassophobia. Below Zero had the strange reveal Maida was still alive, which I can rationalize as the fact she's just so cool she can breathe underwater and also is immune to disease but I couldn't get over the fact there was someone else here.
BZ has no sense of urgency, you aren't the sole survivor of a disastrous shipwreck trying to stay alive. You just show up in a drop pod to investigate your sister's death. Unfortunately there's no reason for me to care about it. I don't know who the protagonist's sister is, I don't really care to investigate a conspiracy. The motivation to stay alive is a much more universal one than the motivation to investigate a corporation's involvement in a relative's death.
I'm worried that Subnautica 2 is going to focus heavily on multiplayer, which is not something I ever wanted out of Subnautica personally. I hope they can balance singleplayer with multiplayer, but I've not got much confidence left there. I'll check it out when it gets out of EA.
I really agree about the lack of urgency in BZ. I never really thought about that until you're comment, but I think you're right. That being said, I quite enjoyed the story in BZ around the alien....
I really agree about the lack of urgency in BZ. I never really thought about that until you're comment, but I think you're right.
That being said, I quite enjoyed the story in BZ around the alien. I thought the closing scene was an interesting and frustrating cliffhanger, that forced me to feel invested in a further unraveling of the story.
I think the isolation argument you make is an interesting one. I need to think about it more. I think you're probably onto something - though, I found the story was rich in terms of people simply insofar as we were hunting for a sibling / seeing other scientists / etc.
End of the day ... I'm still interested in the forthcoming game. I have a friend that's never played the original and hasn't had an spoilers. They found a mod for CoOp. I might give that a try to see if multiplayer Subnautica is any good. Truth be told, I really enjoyed watching the story over someone's stream!
Really, though, I missed the submarine in BZ more than anything else!
The second game was smaller, more of a spinoff game. Something akin to Assassins Creed Brotherhood/Revelations was to AC2 while AC3 was its own distinct thing later. And in that same vein,...
The second game was smaller, more of a spinoff game. Something akin to Assassins Creed Brotherhood/Revelations was to AC2 while AC3 was its own distinct thing later.
And in that same vein, Subnautica 1 and BZ both take place on the same planet while 2 will be a different planet much like AC2 and B and R followed Ezio and the numbered titles all followed different assassins.
So it makes sense even though it is the third game it is 2
I’m excited and skeptical at the same time. Subnautica is one of my favorite games, but Below Zero is not. It looks like this iteration is returning to a more diverse tropical biome, and I’m glad...
I’m excited and skeptical at the same time. Subnautica is one of my favorite games, but Below Zero is not. It looks like this iteration is returning to a more diverse tropical biome, and I’m glad for it. I think one of Below Zero’s fatal flaws was a monotonous world, maybe symptomatic of a shorter development cycle. Releasing in early access next year worries me the environment isn’t getting the same level of care and detail as the first game.
I mean they've been working on 2 for a long time now. There's was rumors based on hiring posts from the company years ago they were working on it, and they officially announced the game almost a...
I mean they've been working on 2 for a long time now. There's was rumors based on hiring posts from the company years ago they were working on it, and they officially announced the game almost a year ago. EA doesn't even start until next year? That's plenty of time to craft a fantastic world that holds up to the original.
I'd love for them to really get what made the first one great and expand on it, but the previous game showed that I don't think they really did (and also got lost in a bunch of gimmicks).
They're really on the crux of something wonderful, and I'm sorta surprised someone else hasn't beaten them to it at this point with how badly they've fumbled.
I fear that some of the high points of the first game could have been accidental. The reaper leviathans are absolutely terrifying in the early game, and before you get better gear they can do a lot of damage if you have the misfortune of meeting one. I made the mistake of going behind the Aurora with only a seaglide, and barely made it out alive. I didn't even see the reaper in that case, because the roar made me nope right out. As I was frantically speeding toward the shallows, the reaper nicked me slightly from behind and took half my health. I was too afraid to look behind me until I was all the way back inside the pod. That encounter was enough to make me avoid reaper areas for the rest of the game.
The other leviathans just weren't as scary to me. Ghost leviathans are actually quite pretty, and I always felt the sea dragons looked sort of silly. This makes me think that the dev/design team stumbled across what made the reapers such good enemies. I'm not sure if they'll be able to recreate the magic this time around. I hope I'm wrong though. I would love to have the magic of Subnautica recreated so I can enjoy it once more. :)
The reaper was truly terrifying. I too was in a seamoth behind the aurora, I felt safe because the water was shallow with reasonable visibility.
It got me before I even saw it.
Suddenly I'm in it's jaws, and it crushes my seamoth. I barely escaped with my seaglide.
After that, explorations were always tense. Always terrifying.
I feel like there were a few games around the same time that effectively hooked into the environment as a major antagonist, and built the game around mechanics interacting with that stressor. Both Subnautica and The Long Dark did it very well in their own ways, and many games have failed to make the environment truly take the leap from set dressing to being a character.
Personally what i'd like to see them work on would be:
I have hope the extended time for 2 will get them back on track. BZ wasn't terrible, it lacked enough dev time to really shine and scrap the bad ideas and discover new good ones. They've had a lot of time with this one so i think they'll get this one right
Loved the first game and bought the second as soon as it was available in EA. I'm not going to do that this time, for a couple reasons.
First off, my experience with Below Zero's early access leads me to think this just isn't the sort of game that is best played EA, or else Unknown Worlds has lost the thread of how to develop such a game in EA. With BZ, biomes seemed to be more or less finished one after the other, with new biomes being pasted in as finished with very little development of or integration with the previously "finished" areas. This led the map to feel even more patchwork than in the previous title, and meant that as you played through the various updates there was no incentive to start over from scratch, because you'd just be retreading ground you'd covered before. This was only exacerbated by the questionable decision to focus on dry land exploration rather than in depth (both literally and figuratively).
The end product of BZ almost totally lacked the verticality of the first, which is important when the entire atmosphere of your world is predicated on thalassophobia. Much of the power of the first title lies in that instinctual anxiety that one feels when they're hovering over a watery abyss, with God only knows what monstrosity lurking in the depths beneath. In Below Zero, you knew what was beneath: mostly a sandy sea floor, or else a glacier. There was very little to grab the player by the viscera and engage them.
Then there's the narrative decisions. Oh my, the narrative decisions! The only issues I really had with the protagonist was the decision to replace the original VA–who I felt had a Freema Agyeman in Doctor Who-like vibe, and I thought did pretty well with the material she was given–and the quality of the characterization itself. I see a lot of people criticizing the choice to have a voiced protagonist at all, which I don't think is really the issue. A voiced protag with something actually interesting to say would've been fine, in my opinion, but that's not what we got. She ended up having pretty much no defining characteristics–not even a cool accent, in the end–and the story she was involved in was rather trite and didn't really have anything new to say. It made the choice to characterize her feel more like a marketing choice rather than an organic result of having a story and character UW wanted to show us. Outside of the troll brigade's usual gripes when they see a female person-of-color in a video game, I think this was the real root of people's dislike of the protag in BZ.
Then there's the other protag, Zoots MaGoots, or whatever his comically quotidian name was. He's an alien intelligence forcibly crammed into the main protagonist's mind, so now they have to find a way to transfer his consciousness into a separate body so he can go home.
I loathed Zoots. I think they were aiming for a fish out of water (get it?), super smart but socially inept, wisecracking sidekick kind of thing, but they failed. Hard. He didn't feel endearingly naive, he felt like a condescending asshole who lived in your brain. The fact that I can describe what they were trying to do with him in storytelling cliches, but in the same breath say they failed, should tell you all you need to know about him and the rest of the writing for that matter.
The biggest problem of all though is that they had the opportunity to really flesh-out and develop mechanics that were great about the first game but felt incomplete, and they chose instead to introduce new mechanics that they left feeling incomplete. I'm talking about the mechanics that still drive people to play the original today, such as base-building, resource gathering, crafting, and cataloguing alien species. Those were fantastic ideas, but the execution of them in the first game never really felt as deep and engaging as they could've been.
Base building was far too modular and inflexible, and didn't really give the player the tools or incentive to build something unique. You've seen one big Subnautica base, you've pretty much seen them all. I see this as a big issue, because I always wanted to build a unique, sprawling undersea complex like some kind of tunnel at SeaWorld, but with alien creatures swimming about in bizarre seascapes outside a big picture window. It didn't feel like either game wanted to allow me to do that. Hard clipping limits and the almost total reliance on pre-designed modular rooms meant you built bases kind of like how the ISS was built, which may be realistic and all, but doesn't give your creativity full rein. This is an especial problem with a modern sequel, since so many fantastic games have been developed since the first that took inspiration from Subnautica's base building and did it so much better. Here I'm thinking primarily of Satisfactory, but you could point at a half dozen or more games with base building mechanics that are much better developed than either Subnautica title.
Crafting likewise changed little between games, outside of a couple of new products that could be made. There was no attempt to introduce automation of any sort, and with nothing but a handful of tertiary products the player only needs to build once and never again, there's really no need for it. They pretty much did nothing new with the concept whatsoever, so it feels like something they included simply because they had it in the first game.
I generally dislike quantifying game quality, but gun to my head, I'd give BZ a C+. It's not bad, but fails to live up to the promise of a sequel to the first game by not really taking the concept in a new direction. To be fair to Unknown Worlds, they told us not to think of Below Zero as a true sequel (hence, presumably, this entry's name), but then they failed almost totally in justifying BZ's existence at all. If they were burning to give us a more narratively focused experience and that's why they didn't bother to develop the mechanics much, then why didn't they write a story that was actually worth the telling? It feels like they decided first that they wanted to make a more narratively focused game, and then the story came later, which seems bass-ackwards. You're a game studio. Unless you have a story you think the world needs to hear, you should probably focus on the game first.
We haven't seen really anything about what direction UW wants to take the gameplay, but unless they've genuinely taken the criticisms people had of the second game seriously and re-examine where their strengths as a developer lie, I'm not particularly interested in where they'll take it.
These are all valid criticisms of BZ, but I think the problem that most people are having is that theyre looking at BZ as a separate game where its more of a spinoff/could've been a DLC that grew a bit bigger than a DLC so became its own standalone thing.
I think if you look at it through that lens it makes a lot more sense on most of why those mechanics and gameplay were not innovated on very much.
I think this being a full blown sequel will go more that direction with expanding and innovating those systems.
I addressed that in my comment. As I said, they were clear long before launch that BZ wasn't to be viewed as a full sequel, but then why did it exist? There were next to no new mechanics introduced that weren't thin retreads of mechanics that already existed in the first. The drone pengling was essentially just the camera drones from the first, but less useful. The hoverbike wasn't nearly as fun to drive as the Seamoth, and you could only ride it in a small sandbox with nothing much to do. The new biomes weren't as distinct as the originals and didn't add much to the exploration element, since they weren't woven together as well as the some of the biomes in the first.
I guess what I'm saying is, why wasn't Below Zero a proper sequel? Why didn't they try to make it one, instead of making what seems to be a rushed reskin of the original? I'm sure they had their reasons, but the fact that I don't know them doesn't fill me with the confidence I need to plunk down early access money.
My biggest gripes with BZ is that its narrative impetus robs the game world of its majesty. In vanilla, the world is unknown, beautiful, mysterious, but dangerous. You want to get the f out. In BZ, you know that people can live there, because you're looking for you sister. So while the world may be hostile, you know that it can be tamed at least for a little while.
Also the leviathan reaper is a biological embodiment of death (and wouldn't be out of place in a tyranid army), while the chelicarate are... big shrimps ?
I agree with your points for the most part, however, while I do enjoy the base building freedom of other crafting games, I liked the modular approach of Subnautica. Maybe it was more of an immersion factor for me, not that I tend to create complex or interesting bases when playing these type of games.
I thought Below Zero was fine, but it was not anywhere near as good as the first game upon replaying it. A major aspect of Subnautica that I loved was the feeling of bitter isolation. The lack of any other living person in the game and the lack of a voiced protagonist compounded in this feeling of total helplessness and fear that really played into my thalassophobia. Below Zero had the strange reveal Maida was still alive, which I can rationalize as the fact she's just so cool she can breathe underwater and also is immune to disease but I couldn't get over the fact there was someone else here.
BZ has no sense of urgency, you aren't the sole survivor of a disastrous shipwreck trying to stay alive. You just show up in a drop pod to investigate your sister's death. Unfortunately there's no reason for me to care about it. I don't know who the protagonist's sister is, I don't really care to investigate a conspiracy. The motivation to stay alive is a much more universal one than the motivation to investigate a corporation's involvement in a relative's death.
I'm worried that Subnautica 2 is going to focus heavily on multiplayer, which is not something I ever wanted out of Subnautica personally. I hope they can balance singleplayer with multiplayer, but I've not got much confidence left there. I'll check it out when it gets out of EA.
I really agree about the lack of urgency in BZ. I never really thought about that until you're comment, but I think you're right.
That being said, I quite enjoyed the story in BZ around the alien. I thought the closing scene was an interesting and frustrating cliffhanger, that forced me to feel invested in a further unraveling of the story.
I think the isolation argument you make is an interesting one. I need to think about it more. I think you're probably onto something - though, I found the story was rich in terms of people simply insofar as we were hunting for a sibling / seeing other scientists / etc.
End of the day ... I'm still interested in the forthcoming game. I have a friend that's never played the original and hasn't had an spoilers. They found a mod for CoOp. I might give that a try to see if multiplayer Subnautica is any good. Truth be told, I really enjoyed watching the story over someone's stream!
Really, though, I missed the submarine in BZ more than anything else!
Isn't this the third one?
The second game was smaller, more of a spinoff game. Something akin to Assassins Creed Brotherhood/Revelations was to AC2 while AC3 was its own distinct thing later.
And in that same vein, Subnautica 1 and BZ both take place on the same planet while 2 will be a different planet much like AC2 and B and R followed Ezio and the numbered titles all followed different assassins.
So it makes sense even though it is the third game it is 2
... Assassin's Creed is a bad example, as Brotherhood and Revelations were full-fledged sequels and the numbering in that series is extremely silly.
Yep, but the second one didn't have a 2 in the name so here we are.
Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and 2.
I’m excited and skeptical at the same time. Subnautica is one of my favorite games, but Below Zero is not. It looks like this iteration is returning to a more diverse tropical biome, and I’m glad for it. I think one of Below Zero’s fatal flaws was a monotonous world, maybe symptomatic of a shorter development cycle. Releasing in early access next year worries me the environment isn’t getting the same level of care and detail as the first game.
I mean they've been working on 2 for a long time now. There's was rumors based on hiring posts from the company years ago they were working on it, and they officially announced the game almost a year ago. EA doesn't even start until next year? That's plenty of time to craft a fantastic world that holds up to the original.
Hm, trailer hints of multiplayer or just NPCs?
They confirmed co-op will be an option in the original announcement
4p co-op.