Subnautica 2 could become a chilling horror game, if only it would shut up

The original Subnautica was secretly a brilliant horror game, so I’ve been delighted to discover—as I splash around in the abyss—that Subnautica 2 makes the terrors of the deep a lot more overt, really leaning into the fear of the unknown. I apologise to anyone in Paisley (or elsewhere in the world) who has heard my shrieks over the last week.

Unfortunately, for every nightmarish encounter, harrowing near-death experience or existential crisis, there are frequent moments when the spell is broken. The culprit? Audio logs. So. Many. Audio logs.

I should note that I do not hate audio logs. For decades they have been a popular narrative device used by horror games to build tension and provide context even when there are no NPCs around. They allowed games like System Shock and BioShock to fill the void of their ghost towns and ghost ships, giving us windows into the final moments of their denizens while still maintaining a sense of isolation.

This a tightrope walk, though, and overreliance on them can actually shatter that sense of isolation that the developers were attempting to preserve. As is the case in Subnautica 2.

In Unknown Worlds’ sodden misadventure, you appear to be the sole survivor of a failed expedition on an alien world. You come to after a disaster, alone and discombobulated. The sole survivor scenario is a compelling fantasy: with only your wits, you can keep yourself alive in even the most challenging of situations, and maybe even flourish in a place where you should be dead.

Subnautica 2 does not leave you alone on this aquatic world, however. Like the original game, you’ve got a PDA spitting out notifications that initially might seem helpful but soon become infuriating. On your lifepod, and dotted around ruined bases, you’ll also find NoA, an AI helper who is also kinda your boss. It doles out hints and tips and objectives, and it really doesn’t like being ignored.

As I dive deep into the planet’s enigmatic depths, then, I am never alone. I’m constantly being reminded that I need oxygen, food, water and that NoA wants to chat to me. If I decide that, no, NoA can bloody wait, my PDA will just keep reminding me. For some unknown reason NoA is unable to actually talk to me unless I’m standing in front of it, despite the fact that it’s clearly capable of interacting with my PDA at any distance.

In these cases I have two options: incessant alerts, or hoofing it back to the lifepod to talk to an AI that I despise. Both of these choices suck.

But these chatty AI companions are not the only things beckoning for me to sit and listen. Scattered throughout the ocean are black boxes and audio logs, offering insights into the now-dead human explorers who were attempting to chart the planet and dissect its mysteries. These were present in the original game, too, but now they are all interruptions, auto-playing as soon as you find them, which completely transforms the tone of the outings they force themselves into.

When I’m exploring an abandoned base while hiding from a huge predator patrolling outside, I do not want to spend two minutes listening to a scientist discussing an argument they’d had with a colleague. All that work Unknown Worlds put into building up the tense atmosphere is flung out the airlock.

Early on, when you can’t stay underwater for long, the audio logs are even more frustrating. I’m not the sort of person who can juggle a bunch of tasks and follow a diary excerpt. If I’m exploring a ruin while managing a very limited oxygen supply, that’s taking up all of my attention. The audio logs, then, just devolve into an annoying buzz in my ear. And if I stop to listen to them, I’ll probably drown—with my PDA’s alerts adding to the noise.

Any I ignore can be listened to later, but that’s not really the point. The damage to the game’s atmosphere has already been done.

Subnautica 2’s set up is perfect for a horror game. Alien mind control, cults, an AI with the ability to simply reprint you with parts of your memory carved out to make you more compliant. This is great stuff. Unfortunately, the narrative is entirely reliant on these audio logs—spilling everything as you just float around listening.

While there is a fair amount of environmental storytelling, Unknown Worlds never lets the environment speak for itself. It’s always got to be coupled with a voice note from some dead person you don’t know. And it’s all so explicit. You’re not piecing things together on your own—to the point where NoA actively directs you towards specific black boxes to move the story forward.

It’s such a shame, because you can make all sorts of incredible discoveries by just going out and exploring the world, but chances are you’ll already have had these discoveries spoiled for you by the last words of some dead guy. It just feels like Unknown Worlds doesn’t trust us to figure anything out on our own.

Early on, you’ll start to occasionally hear a ghostly voice. Given the absence of living human beings on this alien world, that’s pretty disconcerting. Discovering the source of the voice and what it means should have been an unnerving adventure, filling your mind with questions and concerns. Instead, you’ll rapidly have all your questions answered in the most boring way possible.

It’s not even that the audio logs are bad. They’re mostly fine, occasionally funny, and sometimes pretty evocative and creepy. But it’s the difference between hearing a ghost story and being chased by a ghost. I don’t want to hear a story; I want to be part of the story.

The limit of my patience was reached when I visited the Hot Caves. This is an incredible biome filled with magma and the corpses of giant crabs. When you reach it, your PDA announces that there are a multitude of black boxes down there. Now that’s some good storytelling, and a good use of the black box system. Without explicitly telling you much, it still lets you know how dangerous this place is. Countless people went in, but nobody came out.

The biome is also cleverly designed. A huge central area that intimidates with its scale, accompanied by labyrinthine tunnels where you’ll risk drowning. You can only access this location with your tadpole, but it’s so deep that you’ll need to actually leave the safety of your vehicle to avoid it taking damage from the pressure. I found myself distressingly vulnerable, and I loved it.

But why are you in this dangerous place? That’s right—you’re looking for a specific black box. NoA’s actually meant to mark where the box is, but in my game NoA bugged out and I had to find it myself. First, though, I managed to find every other black box in the whole area—which definitely wasn’t my plan. In almost every case, they merely reiterated information I already knew—thanks to other audio logs.

I left the Hot Caves—a location that had initially impressed me so much—not stressed, anxious or with my heart pumping. I was just a bit bored. And my reward for this expedition was a long, meandering conversation with the digital ghost of a scientist. A 10-minute info dump where I just stood in a room and did nothing apart from occasionally selecting a dialogue option. I was so deflated that I called it for the day.

Initially, I was concerned that the over-reliance on audio logs would undermine the game’s inherently horrifying set up. Which it absolutely does, refusing to really let you experience true isolation. But it’s worse than that. It also undermines the sense of discovery that Subnautica 2 should be brimming with, the pace of the adventure, the feeling of agency that survival games really require, and all the while it’s chipping away at this big mystery without your input.

Subnautica 2 is a brilliant game. Even in early access, it’s so clear that this has the right stuff, the potential to become one of the truly great survival games. But all of its myriad promising qualities are held back by a trite narrative structure. If Unknown Worlds had the confidence to just let us experience its world and story on our own terms, without being dragged along by the ramblings of ghosts addicted to exposition, it would really shine.

It’s so frustratingly close to being a perfect mystery-soaked horror game. It just needs to shut up.