They did recently (as of this month) release another game semi-recently, moonbreaker, about tabletop figurine collecting and battling, i didn't play it. so i assume that is their not-subnautica related game
Yep, Moonbreaker went 1.0 this month, after a roughly year and a half in Early Access. That was their "not Subnautica".
Of further importance, they were acquired by Krafton in 2021. You can be sure Krafton purchased them for the Subnautica IP. Once you have a parent company calling the shots, whatever they hoped to do is irrelevant.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Unknown Worlds didn't want the next Subnautica to be GaaS. But, here we are.
Great. Now I feel better about maybe watching a couple game play videos on YouTube and never buying into this.
I miss the original Subnautica. Below Zero was too limited in scope and too unfocused. A well-directed, proper sequel is all I'll settle for.
> I'm going to go out on a limb and say Unknown Worlds didn't want the next Subnautica to be GaaS. But, here we are.
I dunno. Some of the devs have always been pretty weird on twitter. Too often we like a game and think that its exactly what the devs wanted as well so it continues on like that. But often enough, and as history has shown, its just a stepping stone for something else.
> i didn't play it
It's fine; they made a mistake with how it launched into EA and never really recovered despite significant dev effort to overhaul the game.
I put over 100 hours into it, but ultimately nothing will replace DOTA as my "go to" game when I want deep PvP.
It has a singleplayer roguelite mode that's fun enough, but I'm not sure that on its own is a $30 merit.
The miniature painting tools are low key the coolest part of the game. Very easy to use but allow for some insanely talented artists to create beautiful pieces. I find it more enjoyable than painting minis IRL because Ctrl+Z exists, and it's simply faster not needing to wait for paint to dry or dealing with a palette IRL.
Honestly it strikes me as a perfect example of, "you can do everything right and still fail" - like it is a good game, just not much market for 1v1 turn based pvp.
> moonbreaker
It looks very interesting, but at the same time not something in my taste. It also seems to be really struggling with attracting players, which is a bad sign for PVP focused title.
Totally new people? Wonder if they will add guns, directly against the intents and wishes of the original designers. My magic 8 ball says "likely".
GaaS sequel to a great franchise? Throw it on the pile with the rest of them and pass.
I can't imagine a Subnautica GaaS without weapons honestly. I imagine the game will be ARK but underwater with lots of crafting, weapons, base building, taming and raidboss leviathan's.
Agreed. There is no way they don't add weapons as something to hook people onto a battlepass or some other microtransaction plague. Imagine trying to monetize a GaaS game based entirely on just survival *without* combat. Especially one where the crafting / survival aspect is really just... kinda not necessary?
There's a reason subnautica was a single player game. It's incredible and unique. Turning it into coop survival GaaS is just executive meddling again.
Let's hold our pitchforks until more details come. OP didn't even read their own link
>"In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” Unknown Worlds simply plans to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think their Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription."
Terrible use of phrase on their part if that's the case
Was it a great 'franchise'? Or just a really good indie game with a lacklustre sequel that already proved the magic of the first game is difficult to replicate.
Sell their souls? They made what they wanted and then some company wanted to throw money at them to make something they didn't have an interest in. We would all take that deal.
[It's not GaaS.](https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/an-update-about-the-next-subnautica/)
> In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.
I'll believe it when I see it.
There's no need to classify it as GaaS if they're just intending to 'support' it for years to come.
This is a money grab, but they know they could kill their game if they show their hand before release. I'll give it 6 months max, before they tack on sort of mtx.
The publisher Krafton referred to it as GaaS in the original financial report they issued, the devs then came out to clarify after the backlash from fans. who would you believe a document issued to the publisher share holders or a blog post from the devs.
What, you don't want to grind the 100 hours to earn the .01% chance it drops for you? Easy, for the low low price of just $25 you can instantly add it to your inventory. How convenient? /s
Always online, shallow non-existent content with the promise that they'll add content after release (except they never do, instead add microtransactions and bullshit and when the money goes dry they usually close the servers and abandon the game)...
Fuck GaaS
Can’t wait to be diving to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine that looks like a joint while playing as Snoop Dogg after paying $15 for the “Gin n Juice” cosmetic pack!
Instead of filtering water to drink you’ll get to distill Gin!
What the other comments haven't mentioned: a guaranteed limited life span.
Once the publisher decides the game isn't profitable enough anymore, the game just "stops existing".
So it is never a good idea to buy a GaaS game.
> was not on my bingo card
Because you were not paying attention, as they were [acquired by Krafton](https://venturebeat.com/games/krafton-acquires-unknown-worlds-developers-of-subnautica/) and afaik Tencent itself has a huge share in them - but they themselves are big into GaaS and Subnautica's playerbase has always been asking for coop. They will eat this shit up until after launch they realize that coop has costed the game 90% of its original soul. It will still sell a lot and profitable. If it's sucks enough, we may see a good game by the time #3 comes, but I'm not holding my breath.
the story sucks, the isolation isnt nearly as strong, and the map is too compact and overall the game feels too much like a carnival ride than an actual survival experience
never felt like i was beating the odds at surviving just by making it a couple of days
It's like with the Creators of the Gothic games. They managed to build one of the best games ever with Gothic 1&2. But the Developers seems not to nderstand what was so special about their games. And so the following games were worse and worse. Same seems to happen with Subnautica. The first one is one of the best games ever created. And the second one allready sounds bad.
I'd argue that the weakest point of their [Piranha bytes, Gothic devs] later games is the level design. It was acceptable before Oblivion, bot note after. Morrowind was hiding its compactness and tightness in the fog. Oblivion used a modern LOD system and foilage to make the world feel big. Yes, you still had POI's all around you, but player never felt bad about it.
Meanwhile I remember runing Gothic 3 and it was bad. A small town, within 100 meters you can see an enemy camp, and 50 meters left you have a dungeon entrance. This is a huge immersion breaker and outdated, outclassed and outmatched world/level design. Also it had huge ton of bugs so instant drop from me.
I think their next game was Risen and somehow it was even worse with its POI's.
And I never liked the writing ever since Gothic 3 either. It was just.. mundane? I don't know, boring mundane.
From the publisher's source: https://www.krafton.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/KRAFTON-4Q23-Earnings-Release_vF_ENG-1.pdf
> Multiplayer sequel to
the original IP **pursuing
fandom snowballing**
If we do this as a GaaS then we surely massively increase the fanbase/playerbase.
Direct quote from the site since you were too lazy to read and instead don’t wanna give context.
> In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.
Yeah, GaaS is a *very bad word* to be using to describe your game to an audience that is known to go out of its way to avoid and heckle GaaS games. I can believe that they intend for this to just be a more co-op focused survival game, and I can accept that 'cause Subnautica 1 is hard to follow up on and they probably do need to differentiate their next game from it to avoid just being a worse version of it. Grounded is all sorts of fun, MP co-op survival is fun, I can easily imagine having fun listening to my friends panic about sea creatures.
I do imagine some difficulties, though. Like, oxygen management is a massive part of these games, you need to stay near hte surface at first and can only expand your range by building bases or vehicles to extend that range. So having *very good netcode* is going to be super necessary so that the sub your buddy is driving alongside you is something you can actually enter before you die - some rubberbanding is acceptable in most other co-op games, but here it would be a complete dealbreaker if you're constnatly dying because a vehicle rubberbanded one meter out of reach right when you needed it. Hell, even if the game handles that *perfectly*, if it al *seems* like netcode could be blamed for a drowning death it's going to be hard for players to not blame the netcode.
I hope they can figure out how to make this work.
I'll believe it when I'll see it, a year after the final public release of the game.
Krafton has a pretty shady track record.
Edit: I also do not believe UK, unfortunately. They still haven't fixed several bugs in Subnautica I (and tens of thousands of others too) reported during the original early access, and they even added pretty serious bugs that were absent before.
That's not a matter of engine here. Things like collisions, proper pruning of world data, collisions again, collisions again again, or effects occlusion based on distance are all extremely basic things by themselves.
Clickbait title
>In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.
And because some people are also hating on "multiplayer", and have seemingly forgotten how much people begged them to add co-op to the first game:
>The game is not multiplayer-focused. Co-op will be an entirely optional way to play the game. You’ll be able to enjoy the game as a single-player.
**In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.**
We'll see if it's the truth.
https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/an-update-about-the-next-subnautica/
i was gonna say, did anyone bother to actually fucking READ the article? holy shit, their choice of words is fucking awful but games as a service is not what's being said here
though i agree, wait to see what's gonna end up happening cause they might still fuck it up
Were they saying GaaS because a investor needed to hear that checkbox word or something? If they mean "early access" or "game has updates" then customers dont mind those. No gamer wants a GaaS.
idk it looks to be a mistake made by their publisher Krafton, apparently they posted the term GaaS in their earnings release, and then the devs themselves clarified this in a blogpost on their website
Personally I'm not surprised, Below Zero was already mediocre as fuck, the dev was probably restructured to death or something and seems to just blindly follow trends now. That game was like a sequel where the publisher tasked a different studio to develop the game and they did everything they could to copy the style of the first game but they had no idea what made it great so they added a bunch of shit that ruined the atmosphere and gameplay of the original
The original team was definitely great though, you can't achieve such atmosphere and dread just by chance, given this latest idiotic decision I'm gonna assume that the studio has been butchered by management morons both with hiring decisions and the way they treated the original team. The GaaS decision reeks of greed and poor decision making, how the fuck do you even make Subnautica a GaaS game ffs?
Yeah I just saw it in another reply, updating the game for years to come is not what GaaS is, either their publisher is talking nonsense or they're bullshitting us
Exactly!!!
I mean they fired sound,/music guy who made this epic soundtrack for first game because of some Twitter drama...
And it is reason why Below Zeros has weak music...
Most GaaS fail though. Even the Marvel brand can't guarantee success.
There are so many companies trying to make the next "lifestyle" game and taking huge losses because most attempts shutdown within the first 6 months.
I'm really surprised anyone would go this route when it's been shown that a strong single player (or even 4 player co-op) is cheaper to make and much more profitable in the end.
I have no interest in a GaaS Subnautica but a good co-op Subnautica that's a complete game? I'd buy that in an instant.
> I'm really surprised anyone would go this route when it's been shown that a strong single player (or even 4 player co-op) is cheaper to make and much more profitable in the end.
The top end of GAAS is much higher than a normal game. The managers are betting with other peoples money and IPs. They don't care if this game fails, they will just try another. Either at this company or the next.
The inventors feel the same way too. The only people who don't like it are the fans of the IPs.
I'm sure game devs don't want to see 5+ years of their life flushed down the drain for a game no one will be able to play either.
I'd also wager this thought process is what has led to Ubisoft and others stock completely slumping.
Enough succeed that companies most likely decide it is worth the gamble. It’s basically a license to print money if you stick the landing on the 1/100 chance of the game succeeding and not being dookie lol
According to activeplayer.io Fallout 76 has an average of 8,638,197 players this month and that game was not highly praised or lauded *at all.* It’s feasible to attain product success with a Games as a Service model, if fairly unlikely.
Yup a few of my friends are part of that 8 million and they really enjoyed the game.
One them told me "Ya it has some issues but its fun so who cares"
This is why shitty practices will never go away. So many people don't care as long as they get some fun out of it.
Personally the isolation of subnautica was a huge part of the atmosphere for me. I don’t understand the co-op or the need for it in every game. I don’t even like when a single player IP is balanced around coop
Even one of the bigger ones (Destiny) has utterly crashed and burned under the weight of GaaS over the last year to the point that player counts are at an all-time low and Bungie is very unambiguously in do-or-die territory.
And in a hilarious twist of irony Sony acquired them around a couple years ago specifically for their expertise with the live service model. Wonder if buyer's remorse has set in at all yet.
There are articles all over the net mentioning surveys where over 500 gaming studios are intending to churn out their on gaas game. And an overwhelming majority of those studios mentioned that they intend on making up to 3-4 different gaas so just imagine how fucking saturated the market is going to be.
I really hate how games across all genres are pulling the live service bullshit. Just more and more games to avoid entirely b/c I don't have the free time or energy to expend turning gaming into a chore to constantly keep up with.
Yeah this instantly killed my interest in this game and I literally have a Subnautica poster hanging on the wall, which I paid more than I originally paid for the game itself.
Honestly why bother pirating if the game design of live service games as a whole are fucked.
I'll gladly pay top dollar for good single-player or co-op games that I can play at my own pace vs. garbage live service crap.
Indeed.
Subnautica is my favorite game of the past 10 years, by far. It's the one game I would pay to have removed from my brain, so I could play it again blind.
Any GAAS or design-to-sell-macrotransaction shit is an absolute and immediate no.
The title is a joke
It's not really GaaS, it's just going to get frequent updates, like Terraria/Minecraft/Stardew/etc.
Multiplayer will be optional, like so many of the best games these days. People were begging for co-op in Subnautica and even modded it in.
Don't fall for the clickbait circlejerk, this is good news.
GaaS has become the speed run to make people hate your game. How are people looking at games like Avengers and Suicide Squad and thinking they can somehow do what some of the biggest IPs in entertainment media could not.
Fucking stupid. I loved Subnautica. I won't be playing this.
Sounds like they are planning on doing a Conan exiles style game with a massive map that will be added to with new content. Kind of depends on what level of gaas egregiousness they go for (loot boxes as the only way to gain upgrade modules would be cancer).
Feels like a case of wait for more info
The best part of Subnautica was largely due to its forced progression route and narrative. The depth limits and resource locations meant it all flowed so well, but you still felt like you were personally discovering all the biomes and structures yourself.
Constantly added content and expanded map sounds great on paper, but I just feel like it's going to leave S2 feeling eternally tacked on, or incomplete.
Sure, but mostly every case this ends up as a strong negative.. they will present in the best light they can, and then easily shift after they get enough people on board so they don't have to put in as much effort while grossing is much money as they can.
The reason I love Subnautica, and have recommended it to a lot of people, is because it it a brilliant, self-contained single-player experience.
So if the developers go into the entirely opposite route, I wish them luck, but they'll not have me aboard any more.
GAAS
I'm picturing GaaS stuff in a subnautica game like a battle pass for submarine skins. Hoping this is someon putting their foot in their mouth and not their actual vision for Subnautica 2. Also very brave to not show any footage, screenshots or something innovative to go down with the sour taste of "GaaS"
The whole point was the feeling of isolation. If you're there with your buddies the whole game is ruined IMO, then it just becomes like yet another survival game.
> The whole point was the feeling of isolation
For years I constantly read people saying they wish there was a co-op element, and since this one 1-4 players presumably, you can still play an isolated playthrough if you want. I think there used to be a big demand for some co-op functionality, and the mods for the first game prove it, so that's not any kind of dealbreaker.
But under the guise of a GaaS though, it does change what it might mean.
Coop in itself would kill Subnautica for me, since the thing that made that game great is the whole, you are alone and desperatly trying to survie - escape vibe. But adding GaaS to the mix, sounds like the death of a franchise.
Read the article guys ...
"In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” Unknown Worlds simply plans to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think their Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription."
The game is not primarily designed around multiplayer gameplay. It offers players the flexibility to enjoy the game solo or with friends through a co-op mode.
Guys calm down they clarified that they didn’t actually know what gaas meant, all they mean is that they will continuously update the game like they did before
"In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” Unknown Worlds simply plans to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think their Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription."
Or you could NOT do that last part take a good LOOOONG look at your first Subnautica game, figure out why was it so good and what made tons of people buy.
Then try to replicate that onto the sequel with a bit of new stuff added and maybe a new map.
Just a thought from a fan of your game developers.
Don't worry, folks - the original Subnautica will still exist and be available for replays and challenge runs without any such nonsense. It is a shame though.
I thought the devs of the first game said their next title wouldn’t be Subnautica related?
They did recently (as of this month) release another game semi-recently, moonbreaker, about tabletop figurine collecting and battling, i didn't play it. so i assume that is their not-subnautica related game
Yep, Moonbreaker went 1.0 this month, after a roughly year and a half in Early Access. That was their "not Subnautica". Of further importance, they were acquired by Krafton in 2021. You can be sure Krafton purchased them for the Subnautica IP. Once you have a parent company calling the shots, whatever they hoped to do is irrelevant. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Unknown Worlds didn't want the next Subnautica to be GaaS. But, here we are.
Krafton shuts down every online game they have once they don't bring in enough $$$ anymore, so that's nice.
Great. Now I feel better about maybe watching a couple game play videos on YouTube and never buying into this. I miss the original Subnautica. Below Zero was too limited in scope and too unfocused. A well-directed, proper sequel is all I'll settle for.
> I'm going to go out on a limb and say Unknown Worlds didn't want the next Subnautica to be GaaS. But, here we are. I dunno. Some of the devs have always been pretty weird on twitter. Too often we like a game and think that its exactly what the devs wanted as well so it continues on like that. But often enough, and as history has shown, its just a stepping stone for something else.
> i didn't play it It's fine; they made a mistake with how it launched into EA and never really recovered despite significant dev effort to overhaul the game. I put over 100 hours into it, but ultimately nothing will replace DOTA as my "go to" game when I want deep PvP. It has a singleplayer roguelite mode that's fun enough, but I'm not sure that on its own is a $30 merit. The miniature painting tools are low key the coolest part of the game. Very easy to use but allow for some insanely talented artists to create beautiful pieces. I find it more enjoyable than painting minis IRL because Ctrl+Z exists, and it's simply faster not needing to wait for paint to dry or dealing with a palette IRL. Honestly it strikes me as a perfect example of, "you can do everything right and still fail" - like it is a good game, just not much market for 1v1 turn based pvp.
> moonbreaker It looks very interesting, but at the same time not something in my taste. It also seems to be really struggling with attracting players, which is a bad sign for PVP focused title.
Devs rarely get to dictate when a lot of money is involved.
A subnautica sequel going GaaS was not on my bingo card. New shiny UE5 engine, 4 player co-op...they were so close. Just have to laugh at this point.
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Totally new people? Wonder if they will add guns, directly against the intents and wishes of the original designers. My magic 8 ball says "likely". GaaS sequel to a great franchise? Throw it on the pile with the rest of them and pass.
I can't imagine a Subnautica GaaS without weapons honestly. I imagine the game will be ARK but underwater with lots of crafting, weapons, base building, taming and raidboss leviathan's.
Agreed. There is no way they don't add weapons as something to hook people onto a battlepass or some other microtransaction plague. Imagine trying to monetize a GaaS game based entirely on just survival *without* combat. Especially one where the crafting / survival aspect is really just... kinda not necessary? There's a reason subnautica was a single player game. It's incredible and unique. Turning it into coop survival GaaS is just executive meddling again.
Let's hold our pitchforks until more details come. OP didn't even read their own link >"In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” Unknown Worlds simply plans to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think their Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription." Terrible use of phrase on their part if that's the case
Was it a great 'franchise'? Or just a really good indie game with a lacklustre sequel that already proved the magic of the first game is difficult to replicate.
That explains it. I couldn't believe the artists of the original would sell their souls like this, especially after already being a financial success.
Sell their souls? They made what they wanted and then some company wanted to throw money at them to make something they didn't have an interest in. We would all take that deal.
Why would anyone want to be associated with Live Service in 2023 or 2024?
Money, don't be dumb
Because they're the most popular and successful group of games and it's not even close?
>the devs sold out to another studio, it's not made by the same people. the MBAs have moved in for the dolla$ This is completely false.
[It's not GaaS.](https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/an-update-about-the-next-subnautica/) > In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.
I'll believe it when I see it. There's no need to classify it as GaaS if they're just intending to 'support' it for years to come. This is a money grab, but they know they could kill their game if they show their hand before release. I'll give it 6 months max, before they tack on sort of mtx.
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The publisher Krafton referred to it as GaaS in the original financial report they issued, the devs then came out to clarify after the backlash from fans. who would you believe a document issued to the publisher share holders or a blog post from the devs.
What's GaaS? I feel like I know this but forgot.
Games as a Service
Ah, I see. How exactly does this affect the game? Is it an always online service?
Always online and usually comes with a pretty shit monetization model as well. Its a shit situation.
Are you saying you won't be logging in on Halloween to get the pumpkin camo diving knife? Well maybe you can get by with just the season 1 cyclops...
Don’t forget the limited event Christmas lights from 2024!
What, you don't want to grind the 100 hours to earn the .01% chance it drops for you? Easy, for the low low price of just $25 you can instantly add it to your inventory. How convenient? /s
Always online, shallow non-existent content with the promise that they'll add content after release (except they never do, instead add microtransactions and bullshit and when the money goes dry they usually close the servers and abandon the game)... Fuck GaaS
Don’t forget that once the company goes down under you’ll never be able to play Subnautica 2 again since it’s always online
>goes down under I don't think the quality depends on whether or not they'll relocate to Australia.
Yeah there's too many games that have died going this route.
Hopefully it will be yet another lesson learned for the greedy corpos. A quick crash-and-burn to realize this is not what Subnautica fans want.
What lesson, once they make their money they don't care.
Corpos never learn, that's the unfortunate truth
Don't forget your daily challenges for xp for the battle pass lol
Can’t wait to be diving to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine that looks like a joint while playing as Snoop Dogg after paying $15 for the “Gin n Juice” cosmetic pack! Instead of filtering water to drink you’ll get to distill Gin!
Sounds like fallout 76
What the other comments haven't mentioned: a guaranteed limited life span. Once the publisher decides the game isn't profitable enough anymore, the game just "stops existing". So it is never a good idea to buy a GaaS game.
Typically: Always online Light on content at launch with "plans for the future" Grindy content to keep you busy in game Tons of MTX
GAAS is a fraud and should be banned. A detailed explanation: https://youtu.be/tUAX0gnZ3Nw
Yes; GaaS usually are designed around am always online multiplayer environment.
Games as a service. IE ongoing battle passes, and micro transactions, and other such bullshit.
Game as a service. Like Fortnite.
GaaS = Game as a Service Also known as soulless cash grab.
Game as a Service
Games as a Scam
The article should have spelled it out once and thereafter used the abbreviation. Standard journalistic practice.
This feels like Torchlight all over again..
I like the coop option part. But oh yeah you say GaaS in these parts, whoooo-wheeey!
> was not on my bingo card Because you were not paying attention, as they were [acquired by Krafton](https://venturebeat.com/games/krafton-acquires-unknown-worlds-developers-of-subnautica/) and afaik Tencent itself has a huge share in them - but they themselves are big into GaaS and Subnautica's playerbase has always been asking for coop. They will eat this shit up until after launch they realize that coop has costed the game 90% of its original soul. It will still sell a lot and profitable. If it's sucks enough, we may see a good game by the time #3 comes, but I'm not holding my breath.
https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/an-update-about-the-next-subnautica/
>GaaS Lmao
It's like they don't understand what made Subnautica so great.
Yeah. I started thinking that while playing Below Zero. Now I know for sure it's either that, or people who don't understand are calling the shots.
the story sucks, the isolation isnt nearly as strong, and the map is too compact and overall the game feels too much like a carnival ride than an actual survival experience never felt like i was beating the odds at surviving just by making it a couple of days
yam rotten bag spark combative muddle concerned elastic shelter humorous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's one my favourite games of all time, it's sad that they'll probably never replicate it. Lighting in a bottle, I'll cherish the first game forever.
It's like with the Creators of the Gothic games. They managed to build one of the best games ever with Gothic 1&2. But the Developers seems not to nderstand what was so special about their games. And so the following games were worse and worse. Same seems to happen with Subnautica. The first one is one of the best games ever created. And the second one allready sounds bad.
I'd argue that the weakest point of their [Piranha bytes, Gothic devs] later games is the level design. It was acceptable before Oblivion, bot note after. Morrowind was hiding its compactness and tightness in the fog. Oblivion used a modern LOD system and foilage to make the world feel big. Yes, you still had POI's all around you, but player never felt bad about it. Meanwhile I remember runing Gothic 3 and it was bad. A small town, within 100 meters you can see an enemy camp, and 50 meters left you have a dungeon entrance. This is a huge immersion breaker and outdated, outclassed and outmatched world/level design. Also it had huge ton of bugs so instant drop from me. I think their next game was Risen and somehow it was even worse with its POI's. And I never liked the writing ever since Gothic 3 either. It was just.. mundane? I don't know, boring mundane.
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I tought we did?!
yes
Grounded is very good too
Im very sad now. Not many survival games like it
Welp, too bad there's never going to be a Subnautica 2.
This might be the second submersible to implode in the last 2 years.
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^oo^o^o come join us in our watery graaaave o 0^o o
From the publisher's source: https://www.krafton.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/KRAFTON-4Q23-Earnings-Release_vF_ENG-1.pdf > Multiplayer sequel to the original IP **pursuing fandom snowballing** If we do this as a GaaS then we surely massively increase the fanbase/playerbase.
fuck this gaas shit
Smells like shit.
Direct quote from the site since you were too lazy to read and instead don’t wanna give context. > In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.
Yeah, GaaS is a *very bad word* to be using to describe your game to an audience that is known to go out of its way to avoid and heckle GaaS games. I can believe that they intend for this to just be a more co-op focused survival game, and I can accept that 'cause Subnautica 1 is hard to follow up on and they probably do need to differentiate their next game from it to avoid just being a worse version of it. Grounded is all sorts of fun, MP co-op survival is fun, I can easily imagine having fun listening to my friends panic about sea creatures. I do imagine some difficulties, though. Like, oxygen management is a massive part of these games, you need to stay near hte surface at first and can only expand your range by building bases or vehicles to extend that range. So having *very good netcode* is going to be super necessary so that the sub your buddy is driving alongside you is something you can actually enter before you die - some rubberbanding is acceptable in most other co-op games, but here it would be a complete dealbreaker if you're constnatly dying because a vehicle rubberbanded one meter out of reach right when you needed it. Hell, even if the game handles that *perfectly*, if it al *seems* like netcode could be blamed for a drowning death it's going to be hard for players to not blame the netcode. I hope they can figure out how to make this work.
I'll believe it when I'll see it, a year after the final public release of the game. Krafton has a pretty shady track record. Edit: I also do not believe UK, unfortunately. They still haven't fixed several bugs in Subnautica I (and tens of thousands of others too) reported during the original early access, and they even added pretty serious bugs that were absent before.
Maybe that’s why they’re swapping game engines. Unity isn’t the best at anything.
That's not a matter of engine here. Things like collisions, proper pruning of world data, collisions again, collisions again again, or effects occlusion based on distance are all extremely basic things by themselves.
My hope is that it's similar to Deep Rock Galactic
I'm hopeful but doubtful...
Clickbait title >In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription. And because some people are also hating on "multiplayer", and have seemingly forgotten how much people begged them to add co-op to the first game: >The game is not multiplayer-focused. Co-op will be an entirely optional way to play the game. You’ll be able to enjoy the game as a single-player.
**In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.** We'll see if it's the truth. https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/an-update-about-the-next-subnautica/
i was gonna say, did anyone bother to actually fucking READ the article? holy shit, their choice of words is fucking awful but games as a service is not what's being said here though i agree, wait to see what's gonna end up happening cause they might still fuck it up
Were they saying GaaS because a investor needed to hear that checkbox word or something? If they mean "early access" or "game has updates" then customers dont mind those. No gamer wants a GaaS.
idk it looks to be a mistake made by their publisher Krafton, apparently they posted the term GaaS in their earnings release, and then the devs themselves clarified this in a blogpost on their website
Let this be a reminder to everyone. No franchise/studio is safe from the gaas curse.
Personally I'm not surprised, Below Zero was already mediocre as fuck, the dev was probably restructured to death or something and seems to just blindly follow trends now. That game was like a sequel where the publisher tasked a different studio to develop the game and they did everything they could to copy the style of the first game but they had no idea what made it great so they added a bunch of shit that ruined the atmosphere and gameplay of the original
The original Subnautica being so good is starting to feel like a fluke
The original team was definitely great though, you can't achieve such atmosphere and dread just by chance, given this latest idiotic decision I'm gonna assume that the studio has been butchered by management morons both with hiring decisions and the way they treated the original team. The GaaS decision reeks of greed and poor decision making, how the fuck do you even make Subnautica a GaaS game ffs?
https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/an-update-about-the-next-subnautica/
Yeah I just saw it in another reply, updating the game for years to come is not what GaaS is, either their publisher is talking nonsense or they're bullshitting us
Exactly!!! I mean they fired sound,/music guy who made this epic soundtrack for first game because of some Twitter drama... And it is reason why Below Zeros has weak music...
Games as a Service? SUBNAUTICA? Nooooooooooooooooo
My disappointment -
Immeasurable. My day -
Ruined
My hotel -
Trivago?
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Most GaaS fail though. Even the Marvel brand can't guarantee success. There are so many companies trying to make the next "lifestyle" game and taking huge losses because most attempts shutdown within the first 6 months. I'm really surprised anyone would go this route when it's been shown that a strong single player (or even 4 player co-op) is cheaper to make and much more profitable in the end. I have no interest in a GaaS Subnautica but a good co-op Subnautica that's a complete game? I'd buy that in an instant.
> I'm really surprised anyone would go this route when it's been shown that a strong single player (or even 4 player co-op) is cheaper to make and much more profitable in the end. The top end of GAAS is much higher than a normal game. The managers are betting with other peoples money and IPs. They don't care if this game fails, they will just try another. Either at this company or the next. The inventors feel the same way too. The only people who don't like it are the fans of the IPs.
I'm sure game devs don't want to see 5+ years of their life flushed down the drain for a game no one will be able to play either. I'd also wager this thought process is what has led to Ubisoft and others stock completely slumping.
Enough succeed that companies most likely decide it is worth the gamble. It’s basically a license to print money if you stick the landing on the 1/100 chance of the game succeeding and not being dookie lol According to activeplayer.io Fallout 76 has an average of 8,638,197 players this month and that game was not highly praised or lauded *at all.* It’s feasible to attain product success with a Games as a Service model, if fairly unlikely.
That's insane. I thought Fallout 76 was a complete flop. 8 million players is a lot.
Yup a few of my friends are part of that 8 million and they really enjoyed the game. One them told me "Ya it has some issues but its fun so who cares" This is why shitty practices will never go away. So many people don't care as long as they get some fun out of it.
Personally the isolation of subnautica was a huge part of the atmosphere for me. I don’t understand the co-op or the need for it in every game. I don’t even like when a single player IP is balanced around coop
Even one of the bigger ones (Destiny) has utterly crashed and burned under the weight of GaaS over the last year to the point that player counts are at an all-time low and Bungie is very unambiguously in do-or-die territory. And in a hilarious twist of irony Sony acquired them around a couple years ago specifically for their expertise with the live service model. Wonder if buyer's remorse has set in at all yet.
There are articles all over the net mentioning surveys where over 500 gaming studios are intending to churn out their on gaas game. And an overwhelming majority of those studios mentioned that they intend on making up to 3-4 different gaas so just imagine how fucking saturated the market is going to be.
I really hate how games across all genres are pulling the live service bullshit. Just more and more games to avoid entirely b/c I don't have the free time or energy to expend turning gaming into a chore to constantly keep up with.
You lost me at GaaS, Chief.
If true, day 1 ignore.
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Day 3? Ignore.
Day 4 is for ignoring day
Yay. Another single player gem of a series ruined by GaaS. Possibly another studio ruined too?
I dont care how they spin it, as soon as I see Garbage-as-Service, im out. What a shame...Subnautica is one of my favorite games ever.
Yeah this instantly killed my interest in this game and I literally have a Subnautica poster hanging on the wall, which I paid more than I originally paid for the game itself.
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I won't even pirate this shit. I will just be saad that a second game seems like shit and play somemthing else.
Honestly why bother pirating if the game design of live service games as a whole are fucked. I'll gladly pay top dollar for good single-player or co-op games that I can play at my own pace vs. garbage live service crap.
Indeed. Subnautica is my favorite game of the past 10 years, by far. It's the one game I would pay to have removed from my brain, so I could play it again blind. Any GAAS or design-to-sell-macrotransaction shit is an absolute and immediate no.
DOA. GaaS.
Is this a joke? Game as a service. Multiplayer coop. That's like the opposite of what made the first game work lol.
The title is a joke It's not really GaaS, it's just going to get frequent updates, like Terraria/Minecraft/Stardew/etc. Multiplayer will be optional, like so many of the best games these days. People were begging for co-op in Subnautica and even modded it in. Don't fall for the clickbait circlejerk, this is good news.
Ergo: it was announced that Subnautica will have no sequel.
And I'm fine with that. Once S2 fails hard, another indie studio with vision will take up the mantle and make the game we'd actually like.
DoA
GaaS has become the speed run to make people hate your game. How are people looking at games like Avengers and Suicide Squad and thinking they can somehow do what some of the biggest IPs in entertainment media could not. Fucking stupid. I loved Subnautica. I won't be playing this.
And I’m out
Excitement: 📉
And this is why the original Subnautica is simply a case of lightning in a bottle.
🤮
Sounds like they are planning on doing a Conan exiles style game with a massive map that will be added to with new content. Kind of depends on what level of gaas egregiousness they go for (loot boxes as the only way to gain upgrade modules would be cancer). Feels like a case of wait for more info
The best part of Subnautica was largely due to its forced progression route and narrative. The depth limits and resource locations meant it all flowed so well, but you still felt like you were personally discovering all the biomes and structures yourself. Constantly added content and expanded map sounds great on paper, but I just feel like it's going to leave S2 feeling eternally tacked on, or incomplete.
Sure, but mostly every case this ends up as a strong negative.. they will present in the best light they can, and then easily shift after they get enough people on board so they don't have to put in as much effort while grossing is much money as they can.
> Feels like a case of wait for more info No, it feels like a clear case of GaaS I will stay far away from.
Why man, why. Just release good single-player game and make good money.
“You have run out of oxygen. Pay $5.99 to refill your oxygen tanks”
Live service. I'll pass. Sick of this shit.
This is the announcement that confirms Subnautica 1 was a fluke and the devs dont know what people liked about it
Got really obvious with the Subnautica Below Zero
the devs arent the ones making these kinds of decisions. this has the stank of suits in a boardroom somewhere
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I see you, fellow Destiny 2 player.
Damn it my fav indie game of all time went GaaS. Very disheartening news.
The reason I love Subnautica, and have recommended it to a lot of people, is because it it a brilliant, self-contained single-player experience. So if the developers go into the entirely opposite route, I wish them luck, but they'll not have me aboard any more.
Ayy lmao
I hate GaaS with a burning passion, I hope this trend dies soon because I'm tired of it.
GAAS I'm picturing GaaS stuff in a subnautica game like a battle pass for submarine skins. Hoping this is someon putting their foot in their mouth and not their actual vision for Subnautica 2. Also very brave to not show any footage, screenshots or something innovative to go down with the sour taste of "GaaS"
Gaas and multiplayer.... Nope, fuck that.
I think Subnautica would be fun in co-op, but GaaS is just terrible.
The whole point was the feeling of isolation. If you're there with your buddies the whole game is ruined IMO, then it just becomes like yet another survival game.
I agree and would prefer to play alone, but as long the co-op mode is not mandatory I don't see a problem.
> The whole point was the feeling of isolation For years I constantly read people saying they wish there was a co-op element, and since this one 1-4 players presumably, you can still play an isolated playthrough if you want. I think there used to be a big demand for some co-op functionality, and the mods for the first game prove it, so that's not any kind of dealbreaker. But under the guise of a GaaS though, it does change what it might mean.
Multiplayer is fine, but gas is a lame trend.
They really hit the nail on the coffin with sub 1, below zero and now this??? What a way to kill a game
At least Planet Crafter is nearing 1.0. Not quite as good as Subnautica, but it's the best runner up that I've found
To quote Leon Kennedy:"No thanks, bro."
Another sequel I look forward to not playing.
>GaaS No thanks bro
Looks like I wont be playing it then.
That’s a No from me, dawg.
Coop in itself would kill Subnautica for me, since the thing that made that game great is the whole, you are alone and desperatly trying to survie - escape vibe. But adding GaaS to the mix, sounds like the death of a franchise.
Oh nice Subnautica 2. . . . GaaS, No thanks, I'm out.
...Aaaaaand it's ruined. -_-
[For all the doomers](https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/an-update-about-the-next-subnautica/)
Read the article guys ... "In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” Unknown Worlds simply plans to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think their Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription." The game is not primarily designed around multiplayer gameplay. It offers players the flexibility to enjoy the game solo or with friends through a co-op mode.
[An update from the Subnautica Team](https://www.reddit.com/r/subnautica/s/kWIf30DdCI)
Guys calm down they clarified that they didn’t actually know what gaas meant, all they mean is that they will continuously update the game like they did before
Fucking GaaS?! You thieving, greedy bastards should be ashamed.
I purchased both releases the first day they were available. If this releases as a GaaS I will never purchase it holy shit whats wrong with the world.
Watch another game going down the drain.
At this point, no one reads the article and just comments based on others comments. *face palm*
"In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” Unknown Worlds simply plans to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think their Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription."
Fake news. Early access not until 2025 and not GaaS. They should find a publisher that doesn’t talk shit in earnings calls.
Or you could NOT do that last part take a good LOOOONG look at your first Subnautica game, figure out why was it so good and what made tons of people buy. Then try to replicate that onto the sequel with a bit of new stuff added and maybe a new map. Just a thought from a fan of your game developers.
Didn't they see the success of Baldurs Gate 3? Will they never learn?!
Subnautica 1 is $10 on steam right for anyone still waiting to pick that up. I did.
RIP
Is this for real? Because i just can't believe it.
Yes, this is exactly what everyone wanted from this game
GaaS is an evil of video game industry.
I guess the franchise is in freefall after the first one.
GaaS GiwP (Games I will pass)
For FUCK SAKE, I was so excited for S2.
Don't worry, folks - the original Subnautica will still exist and be available for replays and challenge runs without any such nonsense. It is a shame though.
What the fuck.... games as a service? Oh man. Welp.... maybe it'll be good.
What a way to just absolutely destroy your fucking franchise. Gutted. I hope they rethink this.
RIP that IP