Most of the PDAs from the original game were relevant to the story and/or interesting to listen to. The various PDA logs are also a huge disappointment. Some of her conversations with the game's other main protagonist were okay, but that’s about it. I often wished the main character of Below Zero would take a page out of that book and shut the hell up. In the original, the main character doesn’t say a single word.

This is my biggest gripe with Below Zero. The Snowfox isn't even worth the resources it takes to construct it. Those four-legged creatures from the trailer will chase you and cause you problems on the SnowFox, but if you just take the Prawn Suit on land, you can walk right up to them and murder them with impunity (which is quite satisfying). It is a bit wonky to steer, but the real issue is that it is not the best option for traversing the arctic biome. The new vehicle Below Zero introduces, the SnowFox, is a major disappointment. Which is how it should be when your little personal submarine gets grabbed by a massive predator.

Exactly no one ever thought ‘that’s it?’ after that experience. ‘That’s it?’ Everyone remembers what it was like to be grabbed in the Seamoth by a Reaper Leviathan. I looked at the damage it had taken afterwards. I recall the first time it was grabbed by a leviathan, shaken around and released. The way the SeaTruck interacts with the world, especially certain plants it can’t get around, was a recurring source of frustration. The SeaTruck is more prone to getting stuck on things exploring caves than the Seamoth, for example. The problem is, it doesn’t perform the function of either the Cyclops or the Seamoth as well as the original did. The Cyclops and Seamoth have been replaced by the SeaTruck, which is kind of a combination of both depending on how you outfit it. The other vehicles from the original not so much. The Prawn Suit is still here and still awesome. The player of Below Zero quickly realizes that much of the world is simply not that dangerous, and most of the creatures present are not that much of a threat. The constant fear of exploring deeper is also not present. It’s a sea-based game where the land portions are best left as a fun change of pace, as in the original game. I didn’t boot up Subnautica to run around in a frozen wasteland while freezing my ass off. I found the above-ground portions to be more annoying than fun. Below Zero’s world is smaller and feels less diverse. The world of the original Subnautica was vast, with a large number of unique biomes.

This game is a pale shadow of the original Subnautica.

Subnautica below zero all items wiki