I’ve been meaning to sink some proper time and energy into Subnautica, Unknown Worlds’ game of submarine exploration and underwater survival, but looking at the latest update suggests I might be best waiting until I get my shiny new PC. That’s because the Eye Candy update makes the game (visually) better, down where it’s wetter. Rub your eyeballs all over the update trailer within or take a peek at the full update notes here.

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A reader sent me some links to really well-done Subnautica Lego pitches on the Lego Ideas forum so I wanted to share them! Here’s Survivors of the Degasi and Exploring the Safe Shallows. The Lego Ideas forum lets people pitch ideas for sets that they want Lego to convert into real products. You need 10,000 supporters for a set to qualify for review and these are nowhere near. They’re also based on a third-party IP – from the T&Cs I don’t think it immediately precludes a set from eligibility but it would complicate matters. ANYWAY! I just really liked how well the projects seemed to get the sense of Subnautica (look at the peeper fish!) PLUS because the submissions can use only existing Lego pieces you could build them/bits of them anyway. The shallows terrain segment gave me some ideas for building my own reef – not Subnautica-themed – using my young relatives’ Lego collection!

Hello! It’s your unofficial underwater correspondent, Pip! I’m here to discuss the latest dance music fish trailer and update info for Subnautica [official site]. There’s a thing called a Cuddle Fish and you can feed it snacks!

Also, do you have any idea how many notification systems I have for news about this game? And if any of them fail I have also apparently trained friends to alert me to news as well. (more…)

When I get emails with the subject “Ghost Update” it is usually Alice pointing out something important from the latest issue of our favourite ghost magazine – the angel who was also potentially a surfer dude or the couple who kept having little arguments with each other and past life regression revealed that they had been a trapeze act where one had dropped the other one to their death meaning this life was a bit socially awkward for them.

Confusingly, Ghost Update is also the name of the latest Subnautica [official site] update – no passive-aggressive dead trapeze artists BUT there’s a spot of new content (POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING), more final plant art (!!!), a new biome called the Mesas, and… detailed models of poop? (more…)

Subnautica‘s [official site] Voice of the Deep update might be the thing that tips me over into playing that game for hours again and properly exploring the narrative/lore side of things. I’d set the game aside to come back to after early access BUT! Tom Jubert (who did narrative work on The Talos Principle and The Swapper and now Subnautica) noted on Twitter: “Today is the day that Subnautic gets its endgame! Finally, something awaits you at the bottom of the ocean.”

THAT SOMETHING HAS ENORMOUS TENTACLES. I’m so into this. … [visit site to read more]

Ooooh! A Subnautica [official site] update! This one is called Silent Running and yet the trailer is VERY LOUD. I think the silent bit only applies to the Cyclops (a big underwater craft) which you can now run silently if you want to sneak around. Sneaking is now important because of the underwater jerks trying to munch on your Cyclops. That sounded wrong. Let’s move on and watch the video: … [visit site to read more]

If you’ve spoken to me for more than five minutes, chances are I’ve mentioned Subnautica [official site]. It’s an open world survival game set largely underwater on an alien planet. You explore biomes, collect resources and, as updates to the early access project add more content, start to piece together the story of the planet. I played huge amounts of the game before more significant story elements were added and my big project was my volcano lair’s garden. I collected all the weird and wonderful plants I could and cultivated them in little plant beds outside my underwater home. That’s why, when I had a chance to speak with art director Cory Strader, I immediately wanted to talk about the game’s flora.

Read on to find out how The Abyss, microscopy and a real fish with a transparent head and a visible brain all played their part! P.S. You can click on images to see larger version of the concept artwork or, if they’re game screenshots, to just see them in isolation. … [visit site to read more]

Subnautica [official site] seems like a nautical holiday wrapped inside a survival game. Swim around a gentle ocean and meet lots of colourful fish, chill out in an underwater forest, sunbathe on top of a little escape pod it all sounds very relaxing. Don t be fooled. Subnautica is, in fact, absolutely terrifying.

I can t quite remember when I realised that the sea was actually a vast world of horrors. Whenever it was, this realisation was undoubtedly confirmed when I was snorkeling off the coast of Australia in my early teens. I broke the surface of the water to be greeted by blood. So much blood. Not mine, thankfully. It belonged to a man who had bumped into some coral, which proceeded to rip open his leg.

Coral! Nobody expects this of all things to tear chunks out of them, but that s what you get when you decide to visit the utterly alien sea. In Subnautica, this is even more pronounced because it s a literal alien sea, an entirely new world, that you re exploring. You re not meant to be there and you re definitely not welcome.

… [visit site to read more]

I was wondering which games might make the “Things To Play Over The Christmas Break” list this year when the Subnautica [official site] Precursor update got released. I went through a really big Subnautica love affair earlier in the year, but decided to step away for a few patches as the game is still in early access and I didn’t want to lose the magic by mining out each update in turn. Then Precursor arrived and is tempting me back not only with alien tech and more in the way of narrative but NEW CAVES! … [visit site to read more]

If Pip were around, she’d focus on how the latest Subnautica [official site] update added a lovely big undersea tree and new glowing Ghost Rays to swim around it. She’s a peaceful one, our Pip, probably hoping to build another wonderful seabase near that tree. However, Pip is at EGX today, so Pip can’t write this. Instead, you get me telling you about the awful new hostile sealife in the aquatic explore-o-build-a-surviver’s ‘Dangerous Creatures’ update. How do you fancy meeting a humanoid cuttlefish with knives for hands? Or what appears to be an aquatic Tyranid Hive Tyrant?

… [visit site to read more]