Subnautica probably wouldn’t be the beloved ocean exploration/survival crafting game that it is without its underwater base building, so of course it’s no surprise that it’s returning for the impending sequel. But being a sequel, it of course can’t just be the same thing with a new coat of paint slapped on, and in a dev log some of the improvements of base building in Subnautica 2 were put on display.
Namely, the big improvement appears to be just how finicky you can get with building bases. In the first game, you were overall limited by the available pieces in the game, as they weren’t particularly customizable. But, according to base design lead Kiel McDonald, the developer has “moved away from fixed pieces for the most part,” and moved more towards procedural generation.
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“We have a much more sculptural and expressive system,” McDonald said. In the dev log this was shown in a range of ways, like building a corridor a fraction bigger bit by bit, with particular attention drawn to how windows now work. “With the procedural system, instead of having just these big blocks that you can put the windows on, you can make windows in whatever shape you want,” senior engineer Carolyn Lu explained, with some footage showing how windows adapt to the shape of the section of the base you’re building.
According to McDonald, the most challenging part of designing the base building was building the actual system itself. “This is a brand new system. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this in any other survival game,” he said, though I’ll have to take his word on this as someone who would not consider themself a base building aficionado.
I should also highlight that Subnautica 2 does come with a bit of baggage. As it stands, the ex-leads of the game are suing publisher Krafton, with Unknown Worlds (technically) suing them back. But it wouldn’t be game development without some kind of controversy.
