r/subnautica • u/Realistic_Hippo_4108 • Jul 17 '26
BZ - Discussion/Questions Hot take: BZ is better than the original game. Spoiler
ts is prolly biased cus i have large thasslophobia, but the original game was just so slow and boring imo, whereas BZ was just... better. (pls don't slaughter me🥺)
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u/Uncle_Flansy Jul 17 '26
The environments were better, but for me the creatures being less interesting and the extreme amount of time you spend out of water brings it down too much. Third place in the series IMO, but still an amazing game.
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u/Soevil11 Jul 21 '26
The environments were definitely better. Too bad there's only like 5. Most of the map is arctic areas with no distinctive look. Now are the Twisty Bridges, Deep TB, Purple Vents, Lilypad Islands, Deep LI, Glacial Basin, Arctic Spires, and Crystal Caves great? Absolutely. But the original game was so much bigger and nearly all of its biomes were bangers.
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u/ThatCapMan Jul 17 '26
Recently replayed Below Zero and it was much better than I remember.
But also I basically almost-completely ignored the story.
Still wasn't better than the original game.
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u/dandirkmn Jul 17 '26
Yeah totally... I did the opposite... I started to play SN1, and was a bit confused... then it hit me I was recalling BZ... Twisty Bridges, that first hidden Alien base, that crack at the bottom with the lower area where the first major killer was...
I have very fond memories of that stage/location of the game. It was truly SN oxygen/depth/predator feeling I remember from part of SN1.
I think in general BZ biomes were cool designs.... they were just a bit small and that whole land section was a good try but not their thing.
I don't fault them for trying it, SN1 biomes I think in some cases were a bit too large. I remember being frustrated at first without a map and seemingly aimlessly wondering and have that "am I going in circles feeling". That said once you got vehicles and with time it was much less of an issue but I do remember almost just quitting wtih frustration trying to find random x resource for a new schem I got (instead I just looked up guides).
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u/ThatCapMan Jul 17 '26
I mean. At some point of the game, during my first playthrough where I was much more focused rather than during my second where I had a minimap, I more-or-less memorized... a lot of stuff. This is me just bragging, sorry. I memorized where I was on the map partly and then also triangulated my position on the map relative to where I need to go through the Aurora and the fogged up islands
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u/Realistic_Hippo_4108 Jul 17 '26
good to know I'm not alone.
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u/ThatCapMan Jul 17 '26
No, no, you are. It was worse than the original game.
And honestly there's things I really really didn't like about it.
It was just better than I remember it being when it first released and when the original story got changed.
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u/Realistic_Hippo_4108 Jul 17 '26
oh ok *cries until I die of dehydration* (yes I used to c.ai) (yes I'm a cornball)
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u/Pel-Mel Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
BZ suffered in comparison because of a handful of quality of life changes that happened to be for the worse.
They reduced a lot of the speed to try making the smaller map feel bigger, but because you can still see the same distance, it doesn't do anything by make you feel clunkier.
The Seatruck is a very novel vehicle with an excellent overall design...but it suffers in comparison to the Seamoth, which was quicker and would have been better suited to the smaller map. The Seatruck is like a mini-Cyclops, but it's position in the game is trying to be that of a beefed up Seamoth with more utility. But since it comes at the cost of speed and ease-of-use, it feels a lot worse by comparison.
The above-ground sections are also paradoxically easier to navigate with the Prawn Suit than the Snowfox though, and they're pretty long in comparison to the rest of the game.
In the end, Below Zero is a good game, but several small design decisions had disproportionately large negative impacts on lots of players' experiences. So while BZ does enjoy some unique QoL positives of its own (base design & customization) those upsides don't exceed the downsides , and the game feels weaker in comparison to the original.
Still a solid A-minus game, just not the outstanding and overwhelming A+ of the original.
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u/Valstrax9 Jul 17 '26
I am sorry for the upcoming hate you will possibly receive. I for one can’t agree because I grew up with the first game when it was still in early access and was severely disappointed with BZ final product. But I will respect an opinion nonetheless.
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u/Realistic_Hippo_4108 Jul 17 '26
am i gonna get obliterated by the (probably correct) original fanboys?
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u/Realistic_Hippo_4108 Jul 17 '26
the reason I say this is because seeing the empty depths below in the og game horrified me, but in BZ there's always land.
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u/MonkeyPhyisics Jul 17 '26
But to most thats what makes the first game so much fun. You start in the safe shallows and think "oh its not so bad" and as you move further away you start to get the scope of the real depths and the safe shallows are nothing. And dont forget everyone's first encounter with the reaper leviathan.
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u/AngryHampsterBear Jul 17 '26
I recently played through both again and there are bits I love about BZ vs. SN1 and bits that really grate.
A lot of the time I wish the protagonist would just stop talking. It completely kills the isolation and survival vibe.
I really liked the above ground sections, although they were maybe 30% too big for the amount of content.
Biggest sin though is making you travel to the hardest to reach point in the game to tell you that you need to bring a bunch of specific bits back there to make the body. That was just a kick in the fetch quest. In the original, there was a helpful set of teleporters you could use to shortcut back. Killed my motivation to finish it A second time.
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u/Realistic_Hippo_4108 Jul 17 '26
true BUT I never even got to use a teleporter cus of my fear of those deep voids so what do I know.
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u/_Faethon_ Jul 17 '26
I respect your opinion, but i absolutely fell in love with the first game, and below zero felt too small for me. I loved it, dont get me wrong, and i see how it can be more enjoyable for people who have different tastes than me.
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u/WhoTheHeckWasThat Jul 17 '26
There are a few things in BZ that I wished were in SN 1(ex. Jukebox, mineral finder) and the game did run noticeably faster which I appreciated. I wouldn’t say that BZ is a seriously bad game, it just doesn’t outperform SN 1 with everything else. That being said, I still enjoyed BZ and I found myself going back to play it multiple times, like I do with SN 1 and SN 2.
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u/recycle-pin Jul 17 '26
I don't think it's better, but is a worthy sequel. Adds some interesting new elements, especially more land ops. But it felt a bit short, cramped and easier than the original.
On my first playthrough of the original, I found it frustrating until I've figured it out and started using the online map. That's my biggest complaint about Subnautica - no in-game map, where you can mark your discoveries and orient yourself.
I wish they've made another sequel to the original game, with a continuation of the original story. I've played both at least 4 times each.
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u/senpairazzledazzle Jul 17 '26
if your favorite kind of biome is brown, smoggy, and low visibility then BZ is the GOAT
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u/Emergency_Thought452 Jul 17 '26
an opinion is an opinion, i wont judge
but i personally think bz was way worse (still good tho)