What a rare treat Subnautica 2 is, even in its Early Access form. A solo open world with genuine wonder in its waters, and a sense that the author of its world has thought about countless more elements than they will ever show you, that the reality of the place doesn’t end where the game does. It’s intoxicating, down here in Unknown Worlds’ unknowable depths.
But here’s the rub: I’m a very short-tempered survival game player. Every time I go to craft something and find I’m one ingredient short and must wander desolately until one of that thing appears, I come a bit closer to uninstalling a game and never going back. Every time I’m about to uncover a big narrative beat but have to double-back because I’m about to starve to death, my finger hovers over that right-click menu option.
Truthfully Subnautica 2 strikes a fine balance between its crafting and survival mechanics and the narrative-led exploration of its world, but by its nature there are bound to be moments when you’d rather be investigating that strange new beacon or journeying to the depths of the sea cave you just discovered than gathering titanium. It’s for that reason that I brought Wand down with me into Subnautica’s alien waters.
Yes, if I wanted I could turn off all the survival mechanics entirely. Unlimited health, food, water, and even unlimited oxygen. Turn all those options on, and the game becomes a far faster-paced narrative affair where you’re uncovering new nuggets of story and building your base with incredible rapidity. But that isn’t quite how I wanted to tailor my experience.
Instead, I like to make Wand feel like a high-level in-game item I chanced upon. Something that swings the odds in my favour, but doesn’t erase the challenge.
For me, that means hitting the ‘easy crafting & building’, ‘instant crafting’, or ‘instant building’ options in Wand when I’m just one ingredient short of making the next big tech breakthrough like flippers or a nice dining table for my base. I’m not really altering the rules of the game world, but rather hitting fast-forward on the uneventful item gathering I’d otherwise have had to embark on before building something.
And then, when I feel like I’ve got the time and patience to forage for items, I turn them off again and cast my eye out into the world.
Speaking of – by far the most useful element to Wand’s Subnautica 2 suite in my personal playthrough is the Proteus map, filled with markers that show everything from specific flora and fauna locations to story markers, wrecks, outposts, or blueprints and databanks. Later on if I was going for a completionist playthrough this would be an essential tool. For now, it just helps me get around and aids my completion of player-directed objectives.
The best part is, I don’t find it detracts from the wonder of discovering the world’s details and secrets in the slightest. Perhaps if I used the map to singlemindedly tick off each story location without stopping to drink in the journey it might. But generally I use it to find crafting ingredients that have so far proved elusive, and that actually ends up opening up more emergent gameplay along the way.
Let’s say I need some silver. I could pick a direction and guess where along the way I might find it, and there’d be unscripted and memorable discoveries along the way if I did, like new fish to scan, or maybe even a wreck or a cave formation. Or I could look on the Proteus map at which direction the nearest silver deposit is, set off in that direction, and still make all those same impromptu discoveries along the way. (Shoutout to the three Nibbler Mangos I found on my first journey for silver, each hungrier than the last, who I used all my distraction flares to finally shake off.)
Would I use the more powerful options, like unlimited oxygen or set player speed? I thought about it, at the start of the game. There’s a specific excitement to journeying out into a game’s farther reaches right at the start for a sneak preview of what the game has in store for you later, and to get a sense of the sheer scale and variety. Turning those options on for an extended swim out into the bit you’re not supposed to see yet can end up being a great motivator that keeps you hungry to return to those late game areas.
This being a particularly vast game, the teleport function’s also worth a mention. Wand lets you save a set teleport location with one keypress, teleport back to it at will with another, and even undo that teleport with a third keybind. So if you know you’re going to die miles away from your base and you’ve got lots of rare and precious items in your inventory, you can set a teleport location just before being reprinted, then return to it immediately after reprinting to gather the stuff you dropped.
I’m still finding my sea legs down here in Proteus. There are further experiments to be conducted, both with Wand and the game’s robust and deep crafting and base-building mechanics. Early Access impressions will surface soon, and you can bet I’ll be using some Wand options to take particularly epic screenshots without the threat of becoming Nibbler Mango kibble.
