If you haven’t heard of it yet, Subnautica is the last game I’ve played that truly felt wondrous to play and hooked into my brain in a major way. Highly recommend, one of my favorite games of all time I’d say. (Up there with Undertale and Super Metroid)
Subnautica has been on my wishlist since before release but as it got more fleshed out, I just never went and picked it up. I think I may have been put off by the base building element or something, and I definitely had a bad taste in my mouth about exploration after No Man's Sky. Can you give me any more insight into the gameplay that would change my mind?
Unlike most base building/crafting/exploration games, Subnautica doesn’t rely on procedural generation. It has an actual plot, and all of the environments showcase the sort of creativity and artistic choices that we simply don’t know how to teach to a computer.
Sure, I'm aware that it's not procedural, but maybe I was overly pessimistic about the world building within. I think after fallout 4 I've steered a little further away from RPGs with base building. It didn't really feel like those games were focusing enough on what I found interesting mechanic/narrative wise, but were rather taking a scattershot "give the player everything" approach to drive sales. Maybe I'll give SN another look.
...also I think Rocket League consumed my gaming time for a solid year which didn't help me work down my list.
Base building in SN is somewhat a side show. You build yourself a home on an alien world because you need one, but most of the interesting things happen outside of it.
I second the recommendation. Subnautica is hands-off one of the best games I played.
