I really enjoyed the first two subnautic games. Beyond Zero wasn't quite as good but still had some fun survival base building goodness and extensions to the base game.
So Subnautic 2 has been on my radar (or should that be sonar?) for a while. Of course the whole krafton ceo using AI to attempt to cheat the creators out of the 250mil they promised them when acquiring the studio contingent on them releasing Subnautic 2 into early access before a certain date (Maybe some sales number requirments too I forget) Is a really wacky side story to this games release.
Lawsuits and such put control back into the founders hands and the game back on track and it came out into early access just recently.
It takes the same basebuilding underwater survival play of the first games and then adds multiplayer as the new key differentiator
Its also a new area to play in new tools and abilities (your character can gain passive and active boosts to various things by scanning the various flora and fauna which can be swapped in and out and then permanent modifications by shoving your hand in a weird jellyfish.
The mechanics are pretty similar to the original you are on some weird mostly aquatic planet and have to survive by gathering resources and building bases as well as expanding your selection of tools and then later vehicles. There's not really combat as such you can distract some of the more unpleasant enemies with flares and you can use one of the tools to kill smaller things but for the most part you just have to avoid hazards.
Given this is all underwater in addition to the normal food and water gauges you have an oxygen meter this depletes overtime when under the water or not in a vehicle or powered base. You can refil it by going above the surface nipping into a base that has power into a vehicle or some environmental things emit oxygen bubbles you can use to top up. You can upgrade your air tank for more capacity add things like the re-breather and passive mods to decrease oxygen consumption all this acting to extend your range.
You have various tools used for getting around, an inflatable air bladder that gets you up to the surface quicker (or can be inhaled for a small amount of extra air), various levels of flippers to swim faster, the waverider arm motors that boost your swim speed, and then the tadpole submarine.
The tadpole is an upgradable single man sub (in its base form other players can cling to the sides of it to go along) and it has two different hulls that can be connected for different features. A higher speed and manuverability hull that makes it faster and more agile, or the cargo hull that adds two seats on either side for other players and also a cargo hold but this one is slower and less agile than the base version or the high speed. These mods just clip on when you drive into them and can be swapped in and out at will. A nice way to make the vehicles more flexible.
The tadpole has a maximum depth (default is 250m) bellow that it will begin to crush and take damage. You can extend that to 450 with the depth module upgrade. Along with that there are currently about 5 other modules you can slot into the tadpole for higher speed more armor and then additional features like stealthier movement or generating power from the sun.
Base building looks very similar to the previous game but actually is a bit more flexible. You make your base with the similar boxes and tubes and rounded sections adding windows and ladders to see out or go up or down a layer. But instead of these sections being fixed size they can be extended or added together. You can even make a side of the base extend outwards from the interior giving a lot of flexibility.
The base needs power and in the game are four differnt power methods, Solar which only works when the sun is up and can be buffered with batteries, turbine based where you can stick a generator in one of the current flows that exist all through the game to generate constant power, thermal generators that can be placed near heat sources, and then bio reactors that use biofuel you cook up with the plants.
If your base loses or overloads power all the machines inside cut off and it stops generating oxygen so it's important to keep that going.
The resource gathering and crafting employs a load of different machines that process the various metals and such into other forms standard crafting survival game stuff nothing especially new here.
Then there is the narative which is about you the "Qualified Investigator" searching out the missing collonists on this strange water world you find youself on. You were off to a colony on some other planet but somehow wake up here and all the colonists are gone and there is a weird AI tasking you to find them and an increasingly odd set of stories you recover from their black box recorders. So it typically involves giving you a waypoint and then you go explore an old base or part of the ship that got you here and finding new tech and a piece of the story. It's fine a a mechanism that moves things forward and gradually increases you access to the various tools and tech.
In terms of content I did finish what is currently there in about a week playing off and on. Since its a survival game you can just keep playing but that was how long it took to get through what is currently there in the narative. Since it's gamepass that wasn't a problem but maybe if you're paying for it that might be a bit light. More is coming its just that is what is currently in the early access build.
All in all a pretty fun survival game that could be a good multiplayer SNG contender when it has a bit more stuff to do under its belt