Subnautica: When Man is Nothing, He is Free

Man is Nothing: Subnautica and the Nature of Freedom

Subnautica’s a gem of a game that terrifies and amazes in equal part. It took me ninety hours and seven months to complete this richly crafted experience, in part due to the time spent in the mere pleasure of exploring, and in part because I procrastinated delving into its darkest and scariest corners. The depth of Subnautica’s terrors mingled with the breadth of its beauty also produced many opportunities to reflect.

What happens to me, when my connection to the system fails, and I’m left to my own devices against the wild? What happens, when unpredictable events divest me of the trappings that give me a sense of power? It's these wild spaces that free us. Subnautica reveals that by asserting technocracy in order to secure ourselves from the unknown and unpredictable, we lose our freedom.

The Subnautica Universe

According to the Subnautica narrative, the story begins when the Aurora, a brand new capital ship, is shot down under mysterious circumstances and crash-lands on planet 4546B, an unexplored ocean planet. The protagonist and player avatar, Ryley Robinson, is a “non-essential systems chief” aboard the ship.

Both Aurora and Ryley belong to Alterra, a galactic “trans-gov” whose philosophy is equal parts corporate, practical and ruthless. “The Corporation has learnt that violence is most profitable when conducted between customers rather than employees,” an in-game pamphlet comments. Alterra’s sole official support for Ryley comes when a hurried worker transmits blueprints for a rocket while arguing with a coworker over a ham and cheese sandwich. Optional data downloads include pamphlets that give the player more insight into Alterran culture. These include casual reads like the “Alterra Alms Pamphlet,” which repudiates charity, and extols the Alterran system of alms that treats a the help as an investment: they must learn skills, work and be useful to Alterra in exchange for the help they receive. An invitation to join Alterra’s board of directors reads “It’s not about the money...profitability is just an interim measure of success: power and status are the real goals.” The relationship pamphlet frames relationships as commodities, accompanied by a useful guide for conducting the transaction. The player also finds recordings of fellow crewmembers asking why they would ever help competition, admitting to lying their way through medical school exams (because the robots do the surgeries anyway) putting down a visitor onboard the ship over his religion, and survivors thinking in terms of engineering problems lest they be terrified. Alterra is just like the sleek technology it produces: functional, but soulless.

From his presumably comfortable role in this soulless technocracy, Ryley is suddenly flung to the mercy of the waters of planet 4546B. He is the only survivor. In this vulnerable state, the player takes control, and gameplay begins.

The Technology Will Not Save You

The main goal of the game is simple: to escape the planet.

In practice, of course, it is not so simple, a reality reinforced by the inadequacy of available technology to deal with these challenges. Subnautica reinforces the inadequacy of the player through the use of its in-game technology tree, which barely gives the player enough to survive.

The player must build bases and vehicles with a simple tools constructed from a fabricator. These take resources and instantly construct survival equipment from oxygen tanks to underwater vehicles to large base structures. The player must gather these resources.

In addition, when playing in story mode, Subnautica requires the player to maintain four basic meters: food, water, oxygen, and health. When any one of these runs out, the player dies, and they must start over at the nearest save point, losing some items in the process as a penalty. Food and water gradually run out over time, while oxygen levels need to be carefully monitored underwater. The health bar does not run out on its own, and frankly, it doesn’t need to; the planet will take care of that quite well on its own.

First crashfish.

Then stalkers.

Then bonesharks and ampeels and crabsquids and warpers

Then the dreaded Leviathans: the Reapers whose roar can be heard from halfway across the map and who have a penchant for turning submersibles to garbage, or the Ghost Leviathans with their bloodcurdling scream, or the Sea Dragons who shoot fireballs and turn vehicles into chew toys.

Of course, Alterra’s technocracy is ingenious enough to provide for every possible comfort for underwater living; the player can build everything from tables to beds to chairs to even a coffee maker. There are no offensive weapons, all having been purged from Alterra’s computers according to the lore, leaving the player a mere survival knife. And while the game allows the player to kill these hostile fauna, it offers no reward for doing so. Only by learning their patterns and avoiding or escaping them can the player survive.

Even worse, soon after landing, the computer warns the player that they are infected by an aggressive alien bacteria. It warns that even with its vast medical database and efficient medical technologies, there is no known cure.

On multiple fronts, the technology will not save the player. Where they were once the technocrat, they are now just another piece of protein available for digestion. They must be inventive, careful and adapt quickly if they will survive.

You Are Alone

In addition to facing the awful inadequacies of the technology and tools available, the game puts the player through several ordeals to reinforce a terrifying sense of aloneness.

Early in the game, Ryley’s radio picks up signals from other survivors, often indicating their locations. Each time he goes to the coordinates, however, the lifepod is usually empty, often with giant holes indicating something massive ripped it open.

At one point, a ship picks up Ryley’s signature on the planet and begins sending him messages. Just as it’s about to land to rescue him, it’s destroyed by the same weapon that took down the Aurora.

The player will also encounter multiple large alien bases, all of which are deserted.

He is left only with the creatures underwater, none of which can reason, and many of which will try to eat him:

 

Alone, and in awe

Just as the game designers pulled no punches in providing terrifying experiences, they also pulled out all the stops in creating the game’s environment.

These are just a few examples of the underwater biomes the player must traverse. Subnautica’s designers utilized expansive, almost unnecessary variety and exquisite detail to craft naturalistic alien environments and lifeforms, while also utilizing scale and perspective to create a vastness that says, yes, this is a PLANET we’re talking about, not just another 3-d rendered box for a game to happen in.

In addition, the designers crafted each creature and biome with its own unique set of ambient sounds. In some cases, such as the scream of a Ghost Leviathan, they terrify the player. In others, such as listening to the rumbling pod of Reefback Leviathans as they drift nearby, they calm the player. In both cases, the rich ambient and creature-related sounds crafted for each environment underline the naturalistic richness and planetary scale of the game’s setting.

By forcing the player to explore and adapt to these environments, as well as their threats, the game creates a sense of vulnerability and utter smallness, as well as moments of rich (if virtual) beauty.

It creates awe.

The ending, without spoilers

Yes, in the end, Ryley gets off the planet.

But I won’t lie, I felt like I was condeming Ryley to a spiritual death sentence by doing so.

On this planet, I was nothing, sure. Just another piece of meat. And that’s why I was alive.

While Ryley is not given extensive backstory, one can guess at it by the kind of environment 4546B cleaved him out of. A cog, a perfectly manufactured and machined gear, a clicking piece of a sleek, gleaming machine. An ego clad with technology. A part of a rat race through a carefully crafted maze whose only end is that empty human construct, power, and status.

On 4546B, none of that matters. It is the player racing against time to find a cure and leave the planet. The planet does not care if he lives or dies, whether he meets expectations or makes a profit. It does not provide a handbook or a pamphlet or a culture or a protocol. It does not shame him for failing or reward him for succeeding or support him or reject him or admonish him or remind him. It isn’t out to shape him for its own ends. It is unapologetically dangerous and unapologetically beautiful. Survival is the only reward, and Ryley’s individual agency the only force that enables him to obtain it.

And that’s what makes him free.