Subnautica 2 Review (So Far) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Subnautica 2 Review (So Far) – May 20, 2026

Hosts: Blessing Adeoye Jr., Andy Cortez

Special Guest: Travis Northup (IGN)

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Episode Overview

In this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, the crew dives into their impressions and an early access review of Subnautica 2, the highly anticipated follow-up to the beloved underwater survival series. With the game still in early access, the conversation focuses on what's working, where it falls short, and what the community can expect as development continues. Guest reviewer Travis Northup from IGN offers expert analysis, sharing both single-player and multiplayer experiences.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Initial Impressions & The Draw of Subnautica 2

• Andy Cortez was excited going in due to the addition of official 4-player co-op, a feature missing from the original game that had been long requested by fans. He noted the “horrifying” underwater elements and resource management as big draws, alongside base building and exploration.
  • "Subnautica 2 is one that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time because Subnautica 1 ... I booted up for about an hour and said, ‘Dang, there’s no co-op.’ ... We’ve had this one marked on the calendar for quite some time." (04:40)

2. Early Access Content & Progression

• Andy and friends played 7–8 hours in co-op and 12 hours solo, finding the game enjoyable and promising, but notably light on content in its current form.

• Compared to some robust early access titles, Subnautica 2 is "almost the inverse," Andy explained: technically polished and visually impressive, but lacking depth and breadth in content so far.

  • "It is definitely not as deep as I thought it’d be so far. And a lot of that could be early access." (05:44)

• The game visually signals incomplete areas/environment, with in-dev barriers and restrictions on building in some zones.

3. Review Scores and Expectations

• Andy: 7.5/10 ("a good to great experience so far")
  • "If I were to give it an early access review score right now, I’d go 7.5 out of 10." (08:20)
• Travis Northup (IGN): 7/10, noting IGN's scale does not use decimals, so 7.5 or 7.9 round down to 7.
  • "My review score ended up being a 7 out of 10, though. All that said. And that is because...it basically only has two regions in the game. I was able...to get through all the content in the game and in a single day." (13:13)

4. Unique Aspects and Comparisons to Other Survival Games

• Travis praises successful survival games for having “one killer idea” (e.g., Palworld's Pokémon, Grounded’s “shrunken world”), and positions Subnautica 2’s underwater world as its unique selling point.

  • "To be a successful survival game in 2026, you have to have like one really killer idea that sets you aside from other survival games." (11:39)

• The ocean setting organically gates player progress: pressure, heat, and oxygen needs limit how deep you can explore, creating a natural progression system without artificial gates.

  • "The ocean is an amazingly organic way to do that because you’re going deeper underwater..." (33:43)

5. Controversy: No Killing Wildlife

• Players cannot kill fish or predators in Subnautica 2—a moral design choice by the studio, taking a stance on animal well-being.
• Both Andy and Travis agree the current solutions for dealing with aggressive creatures (bonking with tools, sonic "stunner") are insufficient for players being attacked. There’s strong community pushback.
  • "It does suck to get harassed by a shark and not be able to do anything about it. They need some way for you to..." – Travis (14:58)
  • "If you’re not going to let us kill the animals, give us...a skillful way to make them go away for longer periods." – Andy (48:33)

6. Single Player vs. Multiplayer Experience

• Guidance and quest tracking are clear and player-friendly in solo play. In multiplayer, confusion can arise as quest progress is shared and not all players need to complete objectives individually, sometimes leaving teammates lost or skipping key story beats.

  • "I think the game is actually less good at being not obtuse when you are playing multiplayer." – Travis (30:53)

• Multiplayer lacks bespoke systems; it feels like “the exact same game with just more people.”

  • "Their answer to multiplayer has been, I’m going to make the exact same game with just more people." (41:59)

• Resource and story tracking don't scale well to multiple people, and co-op play can be chaotic—especially when streaming and talking over important dialogue.

  • "If you care about the story in this game at all, do not play with your friends." (32:59)

7. Storyline and World-Building

• Both reviewers praise the narrative as surprisingly dark and cerebral, exploring sci-fi themes like consciousness transfer, servitude, and existential dread—all woven into the alien, isolating underwater setting.
  • "It is very dark story. It has like really advanced sci-fi themes about like, you know, life and kind of like a debted servitude..." – Travis (40:43)

8. Game Design and Helpful Features

• The game is lauded for not being overly obtuse. For example, tips for newcomers include simply reading in-game prompts and using the mineral scanner, which makes resource-finding more accessible.
  • "My gamescast game tip is just pay attention. Read and pay attention." – Andy (28:40)
• The onboarding and guidance systems help new players not get lost, but the multiplayer implementation can undercut clarity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Early Access Limitations:
  "You hit a point in the game where it says if you go past this barrier, we don’t have all of this developed." – Andy (08:21)

• On Subnautica's Surprising Horror Factor:
  "This survival game is secretly a horror game... when you go into the pitch black and you hear a roar and there’s something crawling around in the deep that is horrifying." – Travis (35:12)

• On Co-op Chaos:
  "It is three different animals that you’re trying to wrangle…Nick will go, okay, what do I do with this? The words are on the screen…Mike will go off…then you’ll just see notifications, the line: Mike has died." – Andy (27:32)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 03:30 | Subnautica 2 Early Access is released, quick update on sales figures | | 04:40 | Andy’s first impressions: hours played, co-op, and early access pros/cons | | 08:20 | Early Access review scores: Andy and Travis | | 11:39 | Travis on what makes a memorable survival game and Subnautica’s unique angle | | 13:13 | Travis’s full review experience and why it’s a 7/10 | | 14:58 | No combat/killing wildlife—design controversy explained | | 26:36 | Game Tip segment: Andy on in-game guidance | | 30:53 | Multiplayer progress tracking flaws explained | | 33:43 | How the underwater setting shapes the experience and progression | | 40:08 | Story discussion: dark sci-fi themes and Subnautica’s surprising depth | | 41:59 | Travis on the pitfalls of “just more people” approach to multiplayer | | 46:27 | "Early Access Feedback Form": What features do devs need to focus on? | | 49:38 | Closing thoughts and guest plugs |

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The Early Access Feedback Form (Highlights)

Asked by Blessing at 46:27:

• Travis:
  • Celebrate creative biomes and world design
  • Urges for more robust solutions to aggressive wildlife and progression barriers
  • Primary wish: simply more content—more areas, systems, and depth
• Andy:
  • Advocates for quality-of-life additions to base building and returning to established bases (e.g., teleportation/portals)
  • More "skillful" tools for pacifying creatures
  • More vehicles for group play, improved multiplayer balance

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Final Thoughts

Subnautica 2 Early Access delivers a tantalizing taste of underwater adventure and next-gen survival sim polish but is currently hampered by limited content and some frustrating design decisions in its animal-encounter systems and barebones multiplayer. The unique underwater setting creates an organic and gripping progression loop and a dark, atmospheric story. Hardcore fans have something promising to hold onto and reasons to look forward to future updates—but may want to wait for a 1.0 release for a fuller experience.

Best for:

• Fans of sci-fi and survival genres
• Players happy to revisit as the game grows
• Those craving atmospheric, exploration-based gameplay with a narrative hook

Wait on:

• Extended content, deeper progression systems, and more flexible multiplayer features

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Notable Quotes Recap

• "To be a successful survival game in 2026, you have to have like one really killer idea that sets you aside." – Travis (11:39)
• "Early Access is hilarious because it’s like, you know, they’re building a new mall in your town, but they only have half the mall built." – Blessing (09:04)
• "If you care about the story at all, do not play with your friends...I just go, guys, I'm muting you in Discord, I gotta listen to the story." – Travis (32:59)
• "I wish there were more of it. That's really kind of the summary of my review." – Travis (41:05)

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Find more of Travis Northup's reviews at IGN.com and follow him on socials @TyGuyTravis.

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Next episode tease: The crew streams Thickest Thieves with Greg Miller—stay tuned!

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Yo, what's up? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, May 20, 2026. I'm one of your host blessing. Adio. Yay, Junior joining me is the nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Hello.

[A]

Good morning.

[B]

Good morning, Andy. How's it going?

[A]

I'm great. I'm drinking my monster punch. Punk punch Punch. Punk punch Punch. Punk. No, Punk punch Punch. Punk punch. Yeah.

[B]

I've had a punk punch before. Gave me a black eye.

[C]

Gross.

[A]

Oh, okay. Never mind. It was something different.

[B]

Also. Wait, Punk punch. What were you thinking of?

[A]

I don't know. It just sounded more innuendo. Ish. I don't know.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I guess I can.

[A]

I thought that's where you were leaning with it.

[B]

No, in the scenario that I was building, I've like, I got into a fight with a punk.

[A]

Ah, okay.

[B]

Got punched me in the eye and it wasn't great. Also Joining us is IGN's Travis Northup. Welcome to the show. Hello.

[C]

Thank you. Happy to be here. Longtime listener, firsttime caller.

[B]

First of all, I got a couple of things to shout out.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

One, we read your name all the time on kind of Funny Games Daily because you are one of the people that reviews video games at ign. And so whenever we do review roundups, I often see the name Travis Northup pop up. And so it's really nice to have you on the show in person. Second thing is, I love how you're dressed.

[C]

Thanks.

[B]

You look very nice.

[A]

This is always love travesting. Yeah, we went to. We went to an event several months ago that I still think we're embargoed.

[C]

We are. Yeah. It's a weird one. It was in December of last year.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we had a good time eating, you know, having a little dinner after the event. And that's why I got to know Travis and I always.

[B]

Okay. And.

[A]

And I've always just every time I'm like, oh, Travis, suit guy. Always got a vest on. Always got a. A bow tie or a normal tie.

[C]

It's true.

[A]

And I'm here. I am just slumming it up in my. In my joggers, you know? No, I'm usually like, on. On an event trip. It's usually a hoodie and joggers even.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Even less presentable. Gross. I feel that.

[B]

I feel that now. I got a question. What does the closet look like? Like, is it.

[C]

Oh, it's just this. Yeah, it's just suits.

[B]

Is it different color var.

[C]

Yeah, pretty much. I try to. I try to have A good spread. But yeah, I made it my thing, you know, just sick. You got to market yourself. I like, always liked wearing suits and so I love full commit.

[B]

There's a great Steve Harvey video where he's talking about all the suits that a man needs to have. He was listing the colors. He was like, you need five colors of like suit jackets and pants. You need the. I don't know the colors, but it was like you need the black and you the, you know, red, blue, yada, yada. And the idea being that like, if you have these five color variations now, you have like 25 different outfits.

[A]

You cover the seasons. You cover the seasons.

[B]

Yeah. And you can Mitch mix and match and you have all these r you can have. And I always thought about that. Did I take that to heart?

[A]

No, no.

[B]

I didn't buy the colors. I appreciated the advice, Steve Harvey.

[A]

It's good to think about. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's a nice tutorial video.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Shout out Steve Harvey.

[C]

You say suitorial A pretty. I thought I heard suit toal.

[A]

That would have been really good.

[B]

This episode of Gamescast is not about Steve Harvey, nor is it about suits. It is about Subnautica 2 and Early Access and we're going to give you our review. More specifically, they're going to give you their review because I've not played Subnautica 2. That's not my kind of game. But I want to hear all about it from you two. Of course, if you're watching live, you can get questions in and be a part of the show by super chatting in over on YouTube.com kind of funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers. Over on patreon.com kind of funny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining for now, let's begin with what is and forever will be topic of the show Subnautica 2.

[A]

It is out in Early Access after a long tenured.

[B]

Did they get that bonus?

[C]

They're on pace to get it. I think it was 2.5 million copies sold and they did like 2 million in like three days. So if I'm.

[B]

Cause it's Krafton that owns them, right? If I'm Krafton, I'm like, listen, look at the numbers. We got the money to give them for the bonus. You know what I mean?

[C]

Well, that's why they were trying to.

[A]

You would hope so.

[C]

Yeah, they were trying to get out of that specifically because they knew that that sales goal, I think was gonna be missed.

[A]

They knew it was Gonna pop off. Yeah.

[B]

So Subnautica 2, the Steam description reads like this. It is an underwater survival adventure set on an all new alien world developed by unknown worlds. Play alone or with friends in 4player co op, which is neat. Adapt to survive by building custom bases and crafting tools. Explore the unknown to uncover the mysteries hidden within the depths. Once again, this is an Early Access launch, so this is not 1.0. Travis, you reviewed it for IGN. I want to get your thoughts in. But before we get to you, Andy Cortez, you've been playing it. How much have you played and how are you enjoying it?

[A]

Subnautica 2 is one that I've been looking forward to for a long time because Subnautica 1 was a game that I booted up for about an hour and said, dang, there's no co op. I can't play with my friends, even though there are co op mods out there that you could download that kind of help get you to that experience. But nothing official for Subnautica 1. And if you are a viewer of our streams or if you enjoy the content that we do together when it's the Jabroni boys, it's me, Nick and Mike doing a survival type game. We've been, we've had this one marked on the calendar for quite some time. Yeah, super soaked for Subnautica 2 because of kind of how horrifying it could be at some times and, and how much you need to resource management. And I love base building and there's all sorts of awesome things that sort of draw me to this genre and to a game like Subnautica 2. So I started off Subnautica 2, I guess the day that it released on Early Access because we had something else sculptured that day and, and we were like, no, we can't wait a full week to hop in and play co op. We have to go in now, dude.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So me, Nick and Mike hopped in and we played Co op for about three hours that day and then we played about three extra hours the next day. I've been having a blast fighting, arguing like we normally do. And then knowing that this review was coming up this week, I said, all right, let me start my own kind of single player save, which you can do is I have my multiplayer realm or whatever where me, Nick and Mike's game is saved. So I started a single player game as well and have been having a lot of Fun with Subnautica 2. It is definitely not as deep as I thought it'd be so far. And a Lot of that could be early access. And that's sort of the give and take with early access games. Especially early access survival games, which I feel like is another genre unto itself. Because early access games you kind of know what to expect these days. And sometimes you might get really, really, you know, high expectation type games where Hades 2 comes out and it feels like a full ass video game already or you'll get some real bare bones releases. Yeah, I think Subnautica 2 has a decent amount of content so far. And I am enjoying the exploration of it. I'm enjoying the dread of it. I'm intrigued by what it's doing story wise. Okay, it's. This definitely isn't. And it can be a game where you hop into this world and when you hop in and you start a server, it asks how do you want to play? Do you want to play survival, which is you got to eat, you got to drink to stay alive, or do you want to play just creative, which I got to assume removes the survival restrictions. And so we always go survival. And I think that there is a nice give and take there with where some survival games feel like, damn, dude, I got to be making food all the damn time. This sucks. And there are some games that are a little too lenient, that it feels way too passive. Almost like they don't really give a shit if you eat a whole lot at all. I think this is a decent balance of it so far. Exploration has been fun and again, this is a survival game with story. So you are building things and progressing the story and then your AI robot is telling you where to look next and that's where you might go adventure. And then as you're adventuring, you might discover new things and it sort of unfolds from there on out and. But I've been having a lot of fun with it so far. If I were to give it an early access review score right now, I'd go seven, five out of ten. I think this game is like 75 out of 10. 75 out of 10.

[B]

Wow. Holy cow.

[A]

I think this, I think this is a good to great experience so far. I am excited to see how it evolves and how they continue development and what new things are offered. Because you do hit a point in the game where it says if you go past this barrier, we don't have all of this developed. You could still go play around and explore over there. Which I did. And then once you do that, I go, oh, I want to maybe build a new base here. Then it says, sorry, can't build here. We're in development over here. So it's like, ah, shit. Well, you're letting me do some stuff over here, which is really, really nice. But if I want to have a base, I have to go all the way back and I have to trek all across a massive chasm or some big shit's going to come after you.

[B]

Early access is hilarious because it's like, it's like, you know, they're building a new mall in your town, but they only have half the mall built. And so you're walking in and it's like, all right, we're going to hang out at the Chili's.

[A]

We have an ante and a GameStop. Yeah, that's it so far.

[B]

But then you look across and it's like, oh, that's a Payless shoes. I wanna, I wanna shop at the Payless shoes. And they're like, no, no, no, Foot Locker. It's like, this is closed off. It's like, how long is it closed off for? We're looking at about a year. Oh, damn. All right, cool. Well, I'm at the ball, so I guess I'll just go back into the game stuff.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Just explore these areas so far. But I. I think it's a really fun experience so far and I think it's a very promising start. Not as strong as I would have hoped it is because of how maybe content light it feels, but it's still decent enough. I've put in about 7 hours on co op, 7 to 8 hours on co op, and then around 12 hours single player.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. On the brand new server. And I am excited to hear Travis and his thoughts on his experience with Subnautica to see how much it differs from mine.

[B]

Yeah. Travis, you of course reviewed it for ign. The people who watch, kind of funny, they know Andy's history with survival games. They've probably watched him and the Jabroni boys play a lot of survival games. What's your history when it comes to the genre?

[C]

Yeah, I love survival games. I think when they're at their best, they combine kind of like a very hard to put down kind of progression right. Where you're. You're leveling up and you're getting to that next unlock that that gives you the ability to build something or upgrade your character, do whatever, plus, plus creativity. Which is the thing that I think separates the really good survival games from the ones that are forgettable, is if you have the ability to kind of put your own brain into the game and just do something. Unexpected. And so probably the first survival game I ever fell in love with was Minecraft. That was a lot of people. First grid survival game. I also reviewed for IGN, Grounded and Grounded 2 in Early Access as well. Kind of a very similar thing. And I'm probably forgetting a million others that I've done, but. Oh, Palworld survival game.

[A]

Have you ever hopped into Enshrouded?

[C]

I have, yeah. I think I would say I've spent at least some time in pretty much every survival game that is of note. Like I did Valheim. I did, yeah. Just, I'm kind of. I'm kind of on that route. And for me, the thing that makes a survival game good because a lot of these just like there's that alternate genre name for survival games, which is tree punchers.

[B]

I'm not sure if you guys have heard that.

[C]

Which I think a game can risk becoming a tree puncher if it doesn't have. And this is sort of the core conceit of my review is that, like, to be a successful survival game in 2026, you have to have like one really killer idea that sets you aside from other survival games. And I think when survival games become forgettable, it's because they don't have that. They're just another tree puncher. And if you're going to do that, that's not really enough. And so Subnautica 2, like Subnautica 1 before it, its core conceit is can we take this idea and bring it underwater and change all of the things that you're used to about a survival game, but with like the sea as our playground? And that ends up being a really kind of compelling differentiator. With Palworld, it was the Pokemon aspect with Grounded. It's the shrunken world kind of aesthetic. And so we're. I think all of my favorite survival games have that one killer idea that I think brings them across. And so Subnautica 2 is fantastic because it takes a really good idea that was made a long time ago and tries to modernize it. Because Subnautica 1 was built in a very different type of ecosystem of survival games. It didn't have multiplayer. That's probably its biggest miss in the original. But also it was, I think it originally came out in like 2013 or 2014 when it was in Early Access. It was like quite a long time ago. A very different kind of ecosystem when it comes to survival games. And so I think taking that idea and modernizing it and giving all of the kind of trimmings that you'd Expect from a survival game today is great. My review score ended up being a 7 out of 10, though. All that said. And that is because.

[A]

Which is a good game, which is

[C]

a good game at ign. 7 out of 10.

[B]

Very far off of 75 out of 10.

[C]

That's right. Yeah. Not far at all, actually, because we don't DO decimals at IGN. A 7.5 is a 7, a 7.9 is a 7. Anything that doesn't meet an 8, you kind of round down. That's. That's the system we use. And the. I. I think that that is a. That's a great score for an early access game. Yeah, an early access game that only has. I mean, I'm not sure how far you are, but it basically only has two regions in the game. I was able to. With my original playthrough in single player, I got through all the content in the game and in a single day. Now I'm a weirdo. I play games for like 18 hours a day. So like, that's not an insignificant amount of time. I think I finished it in 14 or 15 hours where I had officially like reached the end. And then I played through a second time during that review period in multiplayer. So, like, you can get to the end of that ramp pretty quickly. And I think that that is its biggest weakness is just how light it is. Because the things that keep you addicted to a survival game are all the different ways you can progress, Whether that's like leveling up your character or you're unlocking that new upgrade that lets you dive deeper. And you only really get to do that in this game twice. You do it once with the initial, like, oh, I fins, I have an oxygen tank. And then you upgrade each of those once there's one vehicle in the game. There's not a lot of. There's also core missing features. Like, I don't know if they're. So when I was reviewing the game, I assumed that not being able to kill fish was just something they hadn't added yet. And then my review came out and I saw people like online being like, oh, yeah, they're not letting you kill things because the company is taking a stance pro animal and have decided that they don't want killing fish in their game at all.

[B]

Interesting.

[C]

I did not know that when I was reviewing the game and so I assumed it was going to be added. But apparently that's not in the game ever. So we'll see how long they stick by that. I think they're getting a lot of Pushback on it right now because it does suck to get harassed by a shark and not be able to do anything about it. They need some way for you to, like.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Deal with, like, sharks biting you and you having, like, no way to fend them off.

[A]

Yeah. They did mention. Yes, It. We understand that it is frustrating. We are also frustrated by that concept that they seem very stuck to the idea that this is a survival game and this is not a. A combat fight. The. The zombie type that they kind of like, they mentioned, go play Sons of the Forest too, if you want to, like, kill stuff. Which a lot of people are like, all right, you guys. But I. It does feel like they. They understand that in order for this system to be good, it has to be programmed really well with how enemies get aggro towards you. And they really want to refine that experience to give you ways to push away. And, you know, like, there have been a couple times where a shark's coming at me and I'll bonk it on the nose of the hammer and it'll go away.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Or the little charge weapon that we see there, the sonic resonator, will kind of like make him go away for a little bit. So there are some things like that, but they are. It seems like they are pretty certain that we're not going to let you have a spear, which you do find in the game. Yeah. You can't, like, ever use them or whatever. But it does seem like combat is a no go here. Yeah.

[C]

Which I'm okay with. But I do think that their answer right now is insufficient. So, like, how they're going to work around it because, like, there's got to be a middle ground of, like, all right, am I stunning these guys or am I going to be able to build something that, like, wards them off from a certain area? Because I built a base in the openings region and had, like, the tadpole docks on side of it, and there were just those, you know, those hammerhead guys that.

[A]

What are the Tadpoles for? Blessings. Information.

[C]

Oh, yeah, sorry. The Tadpoles are a vehicle that you build. It's a submarine. It's a submarine.

[A]

Okay. It's a little, like one person. Just little.

[C]

Little bubble.

[B]

Oh, that's cool.

[A]

The video that I sent you yesterday,

[B]

Were you riding a tadpole?

[A]

Well, I was inside of my. My little tad device, which has an upgrade that you could, like, add better engines to it or whatever.

[C]

Yeah, it has a couple upgr. But the. The. I built, like, a base with tadpole docks, and it just Happened to be an area where those big four headed headbuddy sharks are. And there were like four of them just camping outside of that pod. So anytime I got in it, I just got headbutted like four times. And I was like, there's no way to get rid of these guys. Like, get out of here, man. What. What are you guys doing?

[A]

And the flare is not the most effective strategy.

[C]

It works for a small period of time. Right? Like you, you need kind of a, in my opinion, like a permanent, like I want to control this area or like have like a, A grace period before I start getting attacked by creatures all the time. But that's neither here nor there. I do think it's missing some core features. The main thing it's missing though is that it just ends prematurely. And so you can get really into it. The good news is all of the content that's there right now is awesome, but you get really into it and then it just sort of right when, right when you're like, I can't wait to see what's next. I feel like I'm getting really deep in the ocean. You find yourself surrounded by those annoying red barriers that don't let you go any farther. And that doesn't feel good in a survival game. That said, I really like this game and I think a 7 out of 10 is a compliment for an early access game. And I just, I'm not the type of person who thinks that games should be graded on a curve based off of them being free to play or them being early access or whatever their situation is. If a game is good, it's good, and if it's not good, it's not good. And so for this one, this game's good, but I have a hard time going farther on a game that feels this incomplete. And you know, that's. But it's still a very good time. You have a lot of fun.

[A]

It's one of those interesting situations when we talk about just how many of these early access games that I've hopped into and how many of them that I've like either really, really got bought into and been super excited or ones that I've immediately kind of seen. All right, I'm not going to be here very long. I think of something like Nightingale. It was one in survival game that I was like, man, this has so much promise, but here are all the things that it's missing. And by that point I had already fallen off and I had gotten into enshrouded by that point. And I, you know, these Survival games kind of, you know, they pop up in waves in my life that I'll like, get really, really into one if it kind of like clicks for me and it hits those serotonin parts of my brain. Right. But the. There are some early access experiences that are super content heavy, but they're really, really buggy and they are. They're going to be a lot of missing art. You know, there will be placeholder art, there'll be placeholder this, there'll be placeholder that, but it gives you 20 ish hours of an experience and you're like, all right, I could see, you know, I think of something like Hades 2 missing a lot of art near the end of it. And that is such an outlier because that game, even in early access, it was. Yeah.

[C]

Basically done.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

World is a good one, I think.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That game had a ton of content. A lot of it was unpolished.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Like, there was a lot there.

[A]

There was, There was a lot there. With Subnautica 2, I feel like it's almost the inverse.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Where it looks really damn good there. The tools that I'm using, the props that I'm using, I'm not finding a tool that's just a block as a proxy model or whatever. It's like all of the art stuff looks complete. It's just the content isn't quite there, unfortunately. And, and, and experiencing it with, with Nick and Mike was still a lot of fun. And then playing single player, I start to. I started to see a lot more of the vision and where this story is going, and I think it's pretty fascinating so far.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And as somebody who didn't experience all of Subnautica 1, I am, I'm hoping that this leads to, like, something that could be played by somebody like Blessing who says, well, I don't really with survival games like that, but if it has a really cool story hook and the progression, that kind of pulls me into going, like, all right, well, this next mission, like, you're, you're just sort of naturally being, you know, brought along for this ride. I think it does a pretty solid job of that so far. Oh, yeah.

[B]

I got a lot more I want to talk about, and I even got questions about that because I'm. I, I think survival is one of those genres where I'm like, okay, definitively, I don't think this is for me, but, like, you know me, I'm a curious gamer. I'll try anything, you know, I mean,

[A]

you did, you did the Lego Fortnite mode For a little bit.

[B]

I did do the Lego Fortnite.

[A]

You felt the, like, oh, okay. I don't mind this.

[B]

What was the. Was it that there was like another survival game? I feel like where I was like, maybe it was Local Fortnite.

[A]

Actually, it was that one.

[B]

Yeah. Where I was like, maybe I could do this.

[A]

I don't know. I don't mind cutting down a tree, you know.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's never. The tree cutting has never been. The tree punching has never been the thing.

[C]

What is the problem with survival?

[B]

I think I've just not gotten into the gameplay loop yet. I think the loop hasn't closed in a way for me where I'm like, oh, this is why I'm here. This is what I'm doing. This is why I care about my progression. I think the closest thing for me, and this is not a survival game, but. And this is a game. I never mentioned Dark Cloud, where, you know, I'm going in, I'm doing my runs, I'm thirsty. It's like kind of hardcore in a way. But then I come out and I'm building a town and all that stuff. That's like the closest I think I've gotten to a survival game type satisfaction. And I think I'm still looking for something to replicate or at least I guess seal the deal for me as far as, oh, this is. I'm in now. I'm having fun. The gameplay loop is here for me.

[A]

There were some people very surprised that Dune Awakening wasn't in my top 10 games last year because of the sheer amount of time that I was in that world.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I was like, guys, you got to understand that of the 120 hours that I spent in doing Awakening, 100 of them was me just like building my base and getting new resources. Cuz I love that and I love that experience in games. And it. The. The other 20 hours where I'm shooting the same NPC was less exciting and I just got really into it. Just became, you know, house builder plus the. The ornithopter builder. Like that kind of when you have that really nice carrot on the stick, I'm like, ooh. If you're. If it's not a massive pain in the butt to try to get to that carrot on the stick, then I'm going to enjoy that experience.

[B]

I don't want to derail too much because I want to keep the conversation on Subnautica too. But I think one thing for me too is I. I think recently I've gravitated more towards games that feel very, like, mechanically satisfying. Like, it feels fun to push it square. You know what I mean? Like, I'm playing Elden Ring and I'm like, yes. I'm like, into what's happening in the moment. And survival games feel a bit more like passive slash.

[C]

I guess relaxing combat isn't the way. The thing you're there for.

[B]

Yeah, the combat's not the thing you're there for.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You're there to build over time. You're there to invest in a community or a base or whatever it is and see, like, look back after tens of hours and be like, look at what I built.

[A]

You know?

[B]

And that's not really what I've been gravitating to lately.

[C]

Yeah. But I got you.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Maybe reminding me of Dune Awakening, too. I did review that as well, and I got really into that game.

[A]

Yeah. I put in so much hour. And that's a game that I'm like, I don't recommend it a whole lot, but I played a lot of it. Like, I don't think the same. Yeah. You know, it's got very, very basic mission structures and you're, you know, fighting the same enemies all the time. And I wanted that to evolve a bit more. And once I saw that wasn't happening, I was like, all right, I'll just continue building my base and, you know, building another ornithopter, building a new. A new sort of like, sand crawler or whatever.

[C]

The main thing that game does well is B. Dune. Yes. Yes. That's kind of like. That's like if you. Every survival game has to have one thing that sets it apart, that games is just that it's.

[B]

I think Dune Awakening might have been one of the. So good. Yeah, I was feeling that.

[A]

So good at being Dune.

[B]

I want to talk a little bit more about what. How the underwater aspect of Subnautica really separate. Separates it from the other survival games in the genre. I also want to remind people that if you're watching live, you can super chat in with your questions, just like Yelsing did. Yelsing didn't write a question, but they just super chatted. And so. Thank you so much, Yelsing. And then Joshua Bowen 7000 super chatted in and said, hit the story end after 25 hours of playtime. I loved this experience and I'm still making my base perfect. I love this game. Looking forward to more. I'm looking forward to telling y' all about patreon.com kind of funny and YouTube.com kind of funny games where you can go and get the kind of Funny membership which allows you to get shows ad free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors. Do you smell it in the air? It's review season and it's only going to get crazier. Forza, Soros, Lego Batman and so much more is coming soon. And that's on top of games daily in review, screencast, Kind of Funny podcast and our streams. Our small 11 person team couldn't do it without your Support over on Patreon.com kind of funny. That's the best place to support us and keep updated on all of our podcasts as they happen, get shows ad free and access exclusive content. But if you don't got a buck to toss our way, we've got you covered. Head over to our Spotify podcast feeds, Follow, watch, listen and rate us. We've been getting a lot of support from new eyes over there and your help goes a long way. And Spotify even has video versions of all of our podcasts if you like looking at our beautiful faces. So head over to Spotify, rate, comment and follow to keep up with all of our upcoming reviews and daily gaming coverage. And we're back.

[A]

Barrett. Can you hit me with it, Baron?

[C]

Cause it's a gamescast game tip. If you need help, don't feel ashamed. It's a gamescast game tip. We're gonna help you out with the game,

[A]

everybody. Welcome to gamescast game tip, where I. If you are maybe a starter in this game, maybe you're a brand new player to this universe and you're like, Andy, what are some tips that you can give me?

[B]

Andy, what are some tips you can give me?

[A]

Thank you for the question. Blessing. One of the tips I would say is if you don't play with Nick and Mike. Okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, Good call. And then if you just read and play the game, you'll know what to do. I was more of a complaint than a tip. Last thing I was. I was, you know, I'm not going to act like I'm the. I'm the innocent party here because when Travis, when me and Nick and Mike are playing a survival game together. Yeah, it's a lot of. It is. It is three different animals that you're. That you're trying to wrangle.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Nick will go, okay, what do I do with this? It's like, well, the words are on the screen. Just do the thing it says. It says it right there. Nick with Mike. Mike will go off an adventure somewhere off on his own and he'll go silent for a little bit and then you'll just see notifications, the line, mike has died and he won't ever tell you and you'll go, mike, what happened? Ah, yeah, I died out there. Yeah, I died. And then with me, you know, I get very ADHD and I'm trying to deal with them and I don't follow instructions and I. It's a whole fucking experience. There were several moments while playing this game, multiplayer, where Nick and Mike and I would be like, man, should we just Google what to do there? I was like, no, like, we're not googling anything. Let's figure this out naturally. Like, I love that part of the, of the, you know, game design. Right. You don't got to do any of that. Bless. You could just fucking read what it tells you to do. And when I played this game, single player, I was like, oh my God, we're so awful. And I understand all the complaints. Whenever people are like, they don't read what? And it's like, no, you're right, we don't read. Yeah. This game is the most straightforward in how you find things and how you do things. And when we're playing together, we're like, man, is that like, how do we find that one mineral? Where would that be? The game gives you all the tools you need to do everything you want to do. And so my gamescast game tip is just pay attention. Read and pay attention.

[C]

We're gonna help you out with the game.

[B]

Yes, it's my jam right there. That's my jam.

[A]

Yeah, the. I think it does a really great job for players who are maybe scared of survival games. It is just so straightforward. Anytime you have a new thing that pops up on your little home based computer, it'll say, hey, there's a new message. You go check it out. And you go check it out. And your AI computer, which maybe seems like something nefarious is happening, would be like, hey, we found the black box signal of a downed diver at one point. Maybe go check that out. And it does a really good job of kind of like guiding the player. There's even a thing you can build that you can put up in your base that shows you a bunch of the minerals that you found so far. And you could click on the computer and say, I want to find. What am I looking for? I'll look for lead. Let me find. Where's lead at? You hit lead and it has like a holographic radar and all the blips pop up on the radar of where lead is and you can click on that little blip in real time and then in real time, that blip will pop up on your screen and you go, oh, leads that way. Let me go swim in that direction. It is so straightforward. It's so awesome. It is. I love when a game is so like, unapologet, unapologetically unobtuse, when it's just like, we're gonna give you everything you need here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There are some times that I do wish there was a bit more of that discovery, but I think it excels in. In other ways in that avenue. But I think the game does a great job for players who are worried about am I just going to be lost and not know what to do? I don't think so. Unless you are playing with Nick and Mike and me.

[C]

In Nick and Mike's defense, I think the game is actually less good at being not obtuse when you are playing multiplayer. And I think that has to do with the fact that multiplayer doesn't come naturally to them. It's a new thing in Subnautica 2. And so my experience playing it solo was like you. I was like, oh, this all makes sense. And then when you play multiplayer, you realize the reason it stops making sense, there's kind of a breakdown is that everybody is progressing at the same time, but they are not necessarily all having to be there for the steps. So somebody will talk to Noah and get a quest step and then the other two people didn't do that. It'll check that mark off their quests as well. And so they'll kind of like lose the plot of like, wait, so what were we supposed to do? Where were we supposed to go? Or like, you'll go and grab a black box. It'll mark it off of everybody's quest. And that black box will be important unlock something. Nobody else will know about it. And so I actually think it's really easy to kind of get lost on the sauce in multiplayer. Specifically. I think they do let less good job at onboarding because if it were me, they would like. If I were designing the game, I would have it be like, everybody has to go and do that step to get.

[A]

We need all players present or whatever.

[C]

Exactly. Or just everybody needs to. They keep the marker on and everybody has to go and do it before they get to the next area. They don't do that. And so I think it is kind of easy because I had the same reaction with people I was playing with and the people I play with are like veteran survival game people and they were just like losing track of stuff. And then similarly, the resource source scanner you talked about, it's universal for everyone. So like your friend can be go going and getting lead and then you go to the base and don't know that and you change it to silver and click on a node and suddenly their thing goes away. And so like, I do think some of the mechanics specifically need a little bit of tuning to be better at the multiplayer stuff.

[A]

And a lot of it is also you're yapping and you're talking and. Exactly. Also it doesn't help when you are trying to stream and trying to entertain.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Because then there's a really important story based dialogue, you know, voice log that you're reading that you're listening from somebody. And at one point I was like, man, this lady won't stop yapping, dude. Like, this has been going on trying

[B]

to think, oh, Mike.

[C]

And now dialogue is really long in that game. And honestly, I think if you care about the story in this game at all, do not play with your friends. Like you will just. It is almost impossible to keep. I have to mute them. I just go, guys, I'm muting you in discord. I gotta listen to the story. And I'm just like, out for a while.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

That's the only way to do it, I think.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Travis, I liked what you kind of led with, which is how survival games kind of need that X factor to separate them from other ones. Otherwise they kind of just turn into the tree puncher, you know, collecting resources, making my base or whatever it is. When we're talking about Subnautica. Right. We were talking about the underwater aspect being the thing that separates it from other survival games for people who might play other survival games but haven't played either. Subnautica 1 or 2. How does the underwater aspect change the game? How does that separate it from other ones?

[C]

So there are ways that don't matter. Like instead of punching trees, you're punching coral. Not at all what I mean when I say the underwater. One of the things that good survival games do well is they provide barriers so that you can't just run to the area at the end of the game that has all of the materials that you need. They're kind of like gating it. So you have to pass this threshold. You must be this tall to proceed to kind of the next zone. And the ocean is an amazingly organic way to do that because you're going deeper underwater and you're not able to just swim straight to the bottom of the ocean, you have to upgrade your equipment and get a tank that can survive longer underwater. And then you have to deal with the fact that there's pretty pressure. Certain areas of the water are hotter than others. And so because it's underwater, they have this really great ecosystem for like, well, if you want to dive deeper, you're going to have to have to work for it. Even getting back to. I don't know if you tried this, but you can get back to the hole that you start in in the tutorial.

[A]

Oh, no.

[C]

Yeah, you can go down there. Right. But in order to do that, you have to have a tadpole. And your tadpole has to be able to go further than 450 meters. And like, you have to do a whole bunch of stuff just to get to that area. And so I'm at the point where

[A]

I have not upgraded. I've only gotten the upgrade on the tadpole. That makes it faster and, you know, the better sort of like turning. But yes, when you are, when you're trying to go low, you start hearing the glass kind of crack on your pad pole. And then your computer says, yeah, hey, there's a lot of pressure down here. We can't go this deep.

[C]

You know, and there's other upgrades like, you know, you can't go to the hot zone in the first region until you up you get the genetic modification that lets you survive heat more. Right. And so I, I just think that the ocean is like a surprisingly good vehicle for a survival game formula. It just kind of like works really well. And also this survival game is secretly a horror game. They don't really tell you that. But like, when you go into the pitch black and you hear a roar and there's something crawling around in the deep that is horrifying. And like, the idea that you're pushing yourself to go deeper and deeper where it's darker and more mysterious and the stuff down there is getting more deadly. I just think that formula really works because it's like you're literally plunging yourself deeper into hell. Right. In a certain way. And so I just think that the mystery of the ocean, the like, kind of intimidating nature of the ocean, and also just using it as a vehicle to keep you out of that area. It's like, no, you can't go there yet because this totally reasonable, organic reason that you wouldn't be able to do that, I just think it's such a clever.

[A]

It's a perfect gamified thing that doesn't feel like you're just being level gated because well, those monsters are harder to beat.

[C]

Yeah, it's like there's no dissonance at all from like how they've designed the game and I just think it's perfect.

[A]

Oh God. Yeah, these.

[B]

Andy sent me a video yesterday that he, he mentioned earlier that was just like of a freaky looking creature in the water and it reminded me of Outer Wilds of like the scary monster Outer Wild.

[C]

Yeah, it kind of does remind me of Outer Wilds a little bit.

[B]

Yeah, I'm like, I don't know if I want this.

[A]

Yeah, the, the. What was that? The glow fit? No, what, the one from Outer Wilds

[C]

or the one, the, the one that's in the, the poison pond area.

[B]

You talking about the one from the beast from Outer Wild.

[A]

The up one.

[B]

The. Oh, oh, I forget the name of it. Yeah, I don't know, it's like there's like a real life equivalent to it though. No.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I forgot what they're called though. I forgot what that fish is called. But they have the little glowy thing on the edge of their little thing.

[C]

Those are kind of

[A]

angler fish.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Spoilers for a part. And Outer Wild.

[C]

God, I forgot about that.

[A]

Awful.

[C]

That was horrible.

[A]

I, I do wish that you know, there just was more of the game. I think that's the one keeping it back from being this amazing experience when I can't build a base out in the further parts of where I've sort of been experiencing. And again that comes with time. That comes with. But what, I guess what I'm enjoying a lot right now is just this not being a buggy mess. And I think a lot of devs have just gotten to that point over the last several years where they realize like hey, it's not, it's totally fine if you release something very feature incomplete, but it's got to run really well. And it can't be this experience where I'm constantly losing shit and I'm getting frustrated and I. And that caused me to go, man, that game, that game gave me a really bad experience. You want to leave a good taste in players mouth to where they go. I want to come back for this experience whenever, you know, whatever update point 2 comes out and here they're dropping a new area or whatever. Like I am so stoked to see exactly how this game develops.

[C]

They kind of have opposing philosophies because they clearly you can just see it in, in what is in the early access build. They have an idea of like we think we can get this much in early access and I think that got pulled back over time just based on it stops at a very odd.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

It's like not a natural. Like okay, end of Act 1. It's like that's as far as we got right. And that I think that works for them because as you said, like it presents a very solid experience that you can play all the way through and go. Nothing really broke. It was very polished. But then there's the other model, the Palworld model where you kind of just throw everything at the wall and it is extremely unpolished and buggy and runs like crap. And that's also somehow fun.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I kind of think both models work.

[A]

It's just really what was my experience with Icarus. Icarus is a very like that game still runs and looks like garbage, but there was a lot of stuff in it and there was a lot of animals and there were a lot of places to go and to explore.

[C]

I think you know, dealer's choice. It's kind of just a personal decision as a studio, like which model do you want to go? And I think they went the conservative approach of like just pulling back and only presenting the stuff that they really thought was ready for prime time. Yeah, I think that's cool. But it also, you know, it limits how long people are going to play your game. I think people are going to get out of Subnautica 2 pretty quickly and then come back when they do updates and that's. I probably will just stay out until it gets 1.0. I mean who. Who knows?

[A]

Yeah, I'm thinking that's kind of my. Where I might be as well. Especially if this year's ends up being as stacked as it seems, I guess with like how, how much time I have to dole out to certain games. But I think story wise, bless it again, like I was mentioning earlier does a great job of kind of leading you in a single player manner to the next objective to get the next unlock to progress further. And it's a. It's this weird story. You're kind of.

[C]

The story is great.

[A]

It's.

[C]

Yeah, it's very good.

[A]

You're on this planet that it's like hey, you're not in Kansas anymore. This is not the planet you were supposed to be on. And it's a game about. You are constantly reconstructing yourself because you are essentially just like these printed bodies that your conscious goes into. And when you start unlocking other of your divers in your crew like their, their Past voice logs and hearing them go, don't reprint me. Don't reprint me. And their audio gets cut off. You're like, whoa, what is happening here? There's some really cool going on.

[C]

It is very dark story. It has like really advanced sci fi themes about like, you know, life and kind of like a debted servitude and like stuff like that. It gets really kind of cerebral, which is also kind of the perfect story to tell when you're deep underwater in a place that feels very.

[A]

So alone.

[C]

Yeah, it kind of feels like foreign. And it's. It's very. It's a. It's a really good story. So, like, I'm excited for everything I played. I liked. It's just. I wish there were more of it. That's really kind of the summary of my review, to be honest. Yeah, it's just like.

[A]

I totally agree. I'm very much looking forward to more, but I don't know if I will be hopping in whenever that day comes because I. I don't want to be kind of just being drip fed. Yeah, here's another little chunk that wait for the next three hours.

[C]

I kind of did the same thing with Hades too. Like, I hopped in, I was like, wow, this is clearly amazing.

[A]

Yeah, I'm a.

[C]

Wait till I did the same.

[B]

Exact. Now, when talking about the multiplayer in regards to the story, you guys mentioned, like, yo, if you care about story, maybe play single player so you can kind of lock in and be able to have the space to listen to that. Yeah, of course. Co op multiplayer is one of the big new features for Subnautica 2. Sonica 1 didn't have that. Outside of just the story stuff, are there? I guess. What are your overall impressions on how they're implementing multiplayer in this game? Does it work? Is this recommended?

[C]

Yeah. So their answer to multiplayer has been, I'm going to make the exact same game with just more people. And I think there is some elegance to that because it means you know exactly what you're getting. There's no like, kind of special things that you have to like, take into account considerations. But it also means that they didn't take anything special into account when they added multiplayer. They literally just said, you know, you could put in more players. And so I think that does create opportunities for friction, whether it's people not being able to follow the story because their friends are allowed to skip it without knowing it. You'll have friends like go off and find a black box and that will preemptively check off. You know, a box on the story later that you will not get directed to because somebody already found it. That feels bad, right? You'll. The resource scanner thing we talked about where it's like, all right, well my friend is using it, so I can't. And that's just a global thing that doesn't feel great. And so I think their solution is sort of like overly simple in that it's just we added more people to your single player game. But the good news is you don't have to learn anything extra. You just go, it's exactly. I was playing single player, now I'm playing multiplayer, same game.

[A]

Yeah, I think there are, there are definitely ways to balance that better. I know that if I create my own multiplayer server, it's not this, you know, ever going server experience. That'll likely come later. Like a lot of early access survival games have where you can buy this, you know, constantly running server that anybody can hop in at any moment. But as of right now, Nick and Mike can't play in my world without me running it. And I do wonder how the balancing works because I feel like it. It's got the. It's got to be this weird push and pull where if you have four players in a server, you have to make. You have to have more resources to collect out there. But then if I'm the only one person in this player in the server that's had four players, does that mean that there's still four players worth of to find? Like, I wonder how that balance exactly works because I've noticed that while we were playing multiplayer, it felt again, we were really dumb and bad while playing it though, so.

[C]

But it felt a little more starved.

[A]

But while playing single player, it's like I never really have to worry about finding food because I constantly have stuff that I've cooked for myself and I know exactly where to get it. But you make a great point talking about, you know, progressing things for that. The amount of times that I was back in my base making something and Nick and Mike would just get something that I didn't know what it was they got because they're just grabbing shit all the time. That hurts my multiplayer experience. And when I played single player, I go, oh, this is how they found that?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, interesting. This is how they were able to get that. That's cool. As a single player, I appreciated that a lot more. As opposed to in multiplayer, things are just getting got because your friends are out there just doing shit. And that feels a little. A little bit less like organic. Of an experience.

[C]

Another thing I did notice that I should probably give as a PSA to everyone out there. I found out after the game came out because I we were playing it on PC during the review period and then the game came out on all the platforms and I picked it up on Xbox. The game does have cross play and cross save between platforms. But yeah, I had a multiplayer game on my PC. I went over to my Xbox, same account. Supposed to be cross save. Hop in new character. Oh, started in a life pod, no equipment. All my equipment is on my PC version of my same guy. And the game recognizes that I'm still Travis. I'm still the same player, but because it's on a different platform, it just spawns you as a new guy. And so I had to like re do all of my crafting, had to like equip my guy with all the right stuff and could only get logged in on PC.

[A]

Gotcha.

[C]

As I was just like a new player that started in a lifepod with nothing on me.

[A]

Gotcha.

[C]

And so that is a little bit like again, I think of their solutions to the problem of multiplayer are just like. It's just more folks.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like they didn't really do anything special with it. I think that does present some problems.

[B]

So to close out this conversation during previews, I like to do a Rosebud Thorn where I ask what's a good thing, what's a bad thing? What's something that you want to see more of? This isn't a preview. This is an early access review so far. So I want to introduce a new thing. The Early Access Feedback Form. I'm the lead developer of the game. I come to you with the form. I'm asking what are your big pieces of early access feedback that we need to implement for the final game? Travis, what's your answer?

[C]

Stuff. I love the creativity of the different biomes and how every new area feels like a different take on the ocean. Whether it's like the sea anemone area or the hot zone or the. You go further under down and you start to see some really weird alien structures. That's all super cool. The stuff that's I think not as good is the like the. The big missing features. I think they're missing. I think they have to have some kind of solution to how you deal with animals attacking you all the time. They're just. There has to be a better answer than what they have right now. And then what I want to see more of is just more of the game, to be honest. Like, just do your thing, work on it. And it takes them a while. Usually. I think the last game was in early access for five or six years. Hopefully this won't be as long. But yeah, just make more of the game and keep doing your thing. I mean, the feedback is pretty much everything I played I liked. I just want more of it, really.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Yeah, Andy.

[A]

I mean, I always get to a point with multiplayer games where, you know, we've seen a recent change in a lot of multiplayer survival games where you are in an airship or you're on a boat or you're on a plane or whatever, and like, your base is that thing, and that's the thing that you are constantly building. Because I. I rarely love when I'm. When I have to go somewhere else to make a base, I'm like, oh, well, I. That's my place, you know, like, am I just gonna make this a passive base over here? Like, am I gonna give a about it? Am I only gonna. How long am I gonna be here? Very much. Like, you know, should I take my car? Am I gonna have to park over there? Like, it becomes one of those situations. Yeah, I would love if. If similar to, like in Valheim, where there's like this teleportation portal stuff, you know, as far as I go out, I would love to be able to get back quicker. I don't know exactly how we do that, whether it's, I don't know, alien portals, whatever the hell. There's a lot of, like, things they can play with, for sure. But I would also say, like Travis is mentioning with. If you're not going to let us kill the animals, give us. I would love a way that is a skillful way to make them go away for longer periods.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And whether that's throwing a thing at them that kind of like, you know, releases this like, pulse of whatever and, you know, if it makes them go away. But I would love, like, if I accurately threw that spear with that device in, you know, skillfully and hit a headshot. I love being incentivized for being more accurate and being more skillful in a game. So I would love if, like all these animals have weak points and make them go away for longer. If you hit them on that. On that part of the bunk, them on that part of the head or whatever. I would love for ways to kind of make it just like I'm not just pushing them away with something and they go away for a set amount of time. Like, give me a way to kind of gamify that experience. But yeah, more vehicles, I would say. Oh yeah, more vehicles for like you and your friends.

[C]

It's a big one because your homies

[A]

can kind of grab on the side of the fins of some of these

[B]

vehicles and like the Tom Cruise and mission.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly like that.

[C]

Later you get a different chassis.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. There's some stuff I'm so for more vehicles and stoked for just for just seeing more of the game. I think this is a very promising start.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[C]

Indeed.

[B]

Well, that is our subnautica to early access review so far. Travis Northup from ign. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[C]

Happy to be here. Thanks for the invite.

[B]

Yeah, if you wanted to have people check you out, come follow you on whatever platforms, where can people find you?

[C]

Yeah, they can find me on all the socials at Ty Guy Travis. All of my work is on ign.com so yeah, give me a shot.

[B]

I love Ty Guy Travis.

[C]

That's me.

[B]

I love that. That's fantastic. Of course this has been kind of funny gamescast where each and every weekday we get together and Talk about the BS reviews, previews and topics in video games, live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Apple or Spotify to get all of our shows ad free and get a daily exclusive show after this. I believe it's a stream. I believe it's me and Greg and I believe we're playing Thickest Thieves. Should be a very nice time. Really looking forward to that. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.