Hello Gammers, HelloGames … oh well.

Don’t worry, this is constructive. I have over 500h on Permadeath and countless others in other modes and I am soon restarting all over again, I love this game.

These days I was wondering what made me want to actualy play another “open world survival” game that is so much smaller, and I noticed something. That game has somethings very small, easy to implement, but that ends up creating a strange sense of novelty every time you replay. That game is Subnautica.

You see, in Subnautica you have a small dread of the unknown, of finding something … dangerous. Lurking around. So even when you are an experienced player who literally knows where every dangerous area/creature is, it is still thrilling to get near those areas, to enter and dare the big challenge.

I miss that on NMS. The game has none of that, the most danger you get is tame compared to that. And lets face it, in the vastness of the universe, you are just as likelly to find cute rideable unicorn-bears, as something that will eat you – whole.

So why not do this tiny bit change. Some planets can have something powerful, something sinister, either on the depths of the oceans or the high mountains. And they don’t need to be that big, but should be respectable, visible, loud.

The idea is not to put something that will scare users, that will make someone rage quit they lost their progress. The idea is to put something that has fair warning, that tells you “dude, you shouldn’t be here, I hope you know what you are doing”. And if you are up to it, you don’t need rewards, you only need the thrill of slaying that thing, of putting your foot down (because if you add unique rewards to very hard encounters, the more casual players won’t really like it a bit).

Something that I miss in Subnautica (and NMS), is the possibility of large creatures to actually damage your base. Sure, 99.99% of people wouldn’t build a base nowhere near these dangerous creatures, but what if I wanted? what if I want to dare? Build a base with redudancies and extra layers of protection to stand that sandwork, that winged demon? the treachearous boss abomination?

And same in space. From time to time you should bump into something that will scare you. The random encounters right now are silly, you chuckle and go away, mark down one more encounter you hadn’t experienced yet. But what if you encounter something that tells you …. no, not even going to scan it, I’m out of here.

So, a little sense of awe, of dread, not necessarily always leading to death and loss, but to get out of there, or maybe, let’s face this thing!

And its not even hard to do it. Get some big assets, put huge HP, some good damage (but not one-hit kill), and some rules on where it can spawn (planet type, star system type). Maybe even just tweak the already existing random encounters, and then add some 5 new mobs that could even look the same everywhere, but for that reason … you know what it is, and its time to run.

I’d like to begin by saying how much joy this game has brought me over the last 40 or so hours.

Perhaps one day I’ll get bored once I feel like I’ve seen everything, but I just continue to be blown away by this game. The variety in systems, planets, flora and fauna (not to mention ships) is just outstanding.

I keep stopping every 15-20 mins to take a picture of another incredible view, whether its a new planet from afar, or a sunset from the surface, or even a weird carbon structure. All the planets feel and look so, so different, if only slightly, and even individual planets look and feel completely different depending on the time of day and weather. I absolutely love this about the game. The cave systems are also amazing, and the transition from surface to space and space to surface is so, so seamless. And even though I realize the game is procedural, and that fact is fairly obvious, it feels as though it has been done in a way that captures the spontaneous and infinite nature of the universe.

I don’t mean to gush, but I am truly blown away. On top of all I’ve said, the music, the NPCs, even the story has me totally gripped. There is something this game that has had a truly profound effect on me.

Thank you Hello Games.

P.S. Please add ship lights we can switch on and off, and please make it so the weather outside doesn’t appear to be inside the cockpit of our ships!