as someone who don't know how to swim, afraid of heights and wide open empty spaces like the ocean or space. I find the game scary and anxiety inducing.

At first I don't know anything about the game, I've just heard of it and found it free on PSN+ and gave it a try. At first no harm done and I was enjoying the game with lights off and with headphones and made a rookie mistake of going around aurora when i got the radiation suit and saw my 1st reaper got killed and resume exploring with that threat lingering at the back of my mind for some reason my body/brain was reacting to the fear. Felt claustrophobic, lightheaded, breathing heavily, so I decided to take a break and tried to check my BP as i don't feel so good which I found it a bit higher than usual. It went on for days until i decided to see a doctor as I thought my asthma is acting up, and found out I was having an anxiety attack which at first I don't know it felt that way. Newer felt that even though I've been playing horror games since I was 12.

I still enjoy the game though, just need to take a break from time to time. This time with the lights on and on speaker.

OK so we're complete opposites. I can watch any horror completely unfazed and il play the scary bits of resident evil for my fiancé whilst laughing at her reaction but subnautica terrified me. It's the only game that ever has. The first time I went out the shallows and saw the massive reefbacks I spent 15 mins getting up the courage to swim towards it 😅. Reapers give me a full body reaction.

That is so wild to hear. Did you get like, desensitized to the leviathans? Or did they never give you any feeling of terror at all?

Thalassophobia

The fear of deep unknown water. Just darkness all around you, hearing things you cant see. No knowing what is around you.

You don't like creepy vibes, but you don't mind giant sea monsters appearing out of nowhere? I guess you're just a little different haha.

In VR- very!

It's not horror. It uses terror though. This video covers it beautifully.

https://youtu.be/Sz80210ipGc

But I was playing it in the beta, and even now on the original, I still get a sinking feeling when I point my sea moth straight down and just... Go.

I have talassophobia, so i get how you feel like, I really do. Im 30 hours in and I have barely explored half of the biomes.

You are probably going to take it slow. Every new biome will be a challenge and you will be scared as FUCK. Then you'll slowly get used to it and it will become part of your familoar territory. It will be like this and get harder as scarier biomes come.

You will survive, and adapt though.

Tip: Get a seamoth ASAP. You'll feel much safer.

Even tough it's scary, I Love this game.

Playing back when the game was still earlier in development, most of my experiences were full of awe and wonder, and the joy of exploration and building. Replaying the game for the first time after the full release, those experiences were replaced with immense terror.

The game is genius because if you stay in the shallows, it's a relaxing game. The deeper you go, it becomes a scary game.

This is probably only a small comfort, but once you spend enough time with the game, it feels like home. I was scared too, but now I feel peace with it all. They did such a good job if making the creatures feel like animals. Once I realized they weren’t monsters, but animals doing animal stuff, I started to appreciate them being there. I’ll fire up Subnautica after a stressful day because it feels like hanging out in nature.

I watched a pretty decent video essay on Subnautica in which they described it as a horror game pretending to be a survival game which is actually a terror game.

Edit. Wrong way around.

I like to describe it as "it's a game that takes place in the ocean. Just so happens that the ocean is a scary place."

I have thalassophobia and have yet to will myself to play - tho I bought and installed and everything as a way to face my fears.

One day!

I think my game glitched one time, it gave me and my cyclops a ride back close to the safe shallows where I belonged

yeah its a "not intentionally scary the devs just forgot the ocean is literal Eldridge horror-"

Game really isnt that grindy if you pay attention to where resources are most common, the only thing you may not like is the amount of storage organisation. its an absolutely brilliant game though, and you would need a huge pet peeve for that kind of stuff bordering on impatience imo for it to actually make the game noticeably worse for you

Really? I dislike grindy single-player games, i dislike aimless survival games… but I loved subnautica. I didn’t find subnautica grindy at all. The pacing is quite good and it’s not too long, you can progress quite fast if you want. There are like two moments where you may need to do 1-2 hours of exploration to progress. But it’s always enjoyable, traversing the diverse ocean is the gameplay loop after all.

Exploration is fun and the visuals are nice. The first time through I'm sure you'll enjoy it even with the grind as it has a fantastic "fresh" feeling the first go around and exploring the depths and all the different biomes can be breathtaking and terrifying at the same time. It's the following playthroughs (building different base setups in different locations, etc.) that kinda burned me out. The feeling came quicker playing the sequel but still I highly recommend playing. It is genuinely alot of fun.

I think it depends if youre into survival-craft/base-building games or not. For me, I love that shit so i was actually still wanting more. I will say tho, it can get kinda hard to know what to do or where to go towards the back half of the game. The game does a good job of nudging you in a direction but eventually you will really feel like youre on your own out there - which is the feeling Subnautica really nails - that feeling of isolation and the feeling there's no one to help you out but yourself... and the internet lol. However, from a video game standpoint, it can get a little frustrating when get really stumped on where to go, what you should do next, or where a certain blueprint is - that, to me, is where it feels like grind. You have a little compendium that has hints but it eventually gets so bloated it becomes a pain in the ass to sift thru, imo.

That being said, there is a Magic to Subnautica. I've beaten it a few time and I'll still get cravings to play it again. Strongly recommend unless you're not really into survival-craft/base-building games. For me, this was the game that got me into those genres.

Highly recommend it! I did not find it tedious or grinding at all. Visuals are awesome and the exploration is really fun.

I love subnautica

I wasn’t able to get into it. I think it’s cause it’s a survival game and I’ve never been able to get into those. But man was it beautiful. I ended up watching a speed run to see parts of the end.

Subnautica VR is pretty sure to maximize the megalophobia and thalassaphobia experience lol

I don't.

It is genuinely scary! But it's not a horror game, I think. Horror is its own genre, with particular conventions, and Subnautica doesn't really fit the bill. It's a sci-fi adventure.

I do actually! My reason, the ocean is huge and there is no way I'm going in there. Basically I have thalassophobia and the game scares me every time I boot it up.

It is 100% a horror game...BUT the horror is quite mild compared to a pure horror game. But it's definitely a horror game. It's exploration horror for sure.

The reason why it is a horror game is because a core component of the experience is that it generates uncertainty in the face of objectives that must be completed. I only know this because I recently played arguably the king of horror games Alien Isolation. I was enthralled at how a game could be so terrifying and saw a amazing YouTube video from a psychologist who analyzed in the game. This video basically outlined that any time you have a clear and defined objective (i.e. in Subnautia's case to move from the safety of your base to a different region to obtain resources) but the specifics of what will be encountered in between the starting point and your objective are unknown....horror is psychologically created. Basically anytime you know what you need....but there is uncertainty of what will be encountered between starting and moving towards getting what you need .... tension , anxiety and horror will be generated.

And you can only meet the objectives by blindly embracing the uncertainty. This makes it a horror game.

I played two horror game this year that just wrecked me - Alien Isolation and SOMA and Subnautica has very similar horror mechanics to both of them...again far far milder....but the core horror mechanic is there......

To further elaborate think of it this way : if your playing RDR2 and you are given a quest to say go steal back Johnny's pocket watch from Billy at the bar or whatever....you know you need to get the watch from Billy and you know his gang is in the bar and your gonna have to fight them. It is unknown if the fight will go OK...but there are no real unknowns to generate anxiety, fear and horror. Contrast this with going into a new region in Subnautica with the Seamoth....you * know* there is something down there but you don't know what.....it could be good, it could be bad.....but it's something and it's unknown but you * must* proceed anyway to progress forward....that is what makes it a horror game....you are forced to embrace the unknown

I'd say yes not because of the game play mechanics or the story itself, but the atmospheric detail is definitely designed to make you hesitate.

The jump scare you get when first grabbed by a certain something.

In my opinion it definitely does get the horror element correctly. Most horror movies, games always have jumpscares which imo is the cheapest way to qualify as horror. While Subnautica is more about eerie, unsafe feelings you get. It is more psychological so I think it is closer to true horror. So I totally agree with OP’s statement.

It really triggers that feeling in people who don't like deep dark water. (Check out r/thalassophobia).

I have all the Amnesia games and I haven't beat any of them because of how much they scare me (I usually hate horror games actually). I can play Subnautica though. What makes Subnautica unnerving is the constant uneasy sensation that you could be prey at any time, but it still doesn't scare me as much as purpose made horror games. It's also breathtakingly beautiful and scenic.

Everyone's different I guess.

The soundtrack definitely was designed to install fear and anxiety. And the roar of the reaper, good night. Some of the pda messages are funny though when they advise on multiple leviathans...are you sure whatever you're doing is worth it?

One thing that helps to know is that the spawn points for creatures are not entirely random. Eventually you will figure out where the big baddies spawn and dont spawn, which either helps you figure out where to avoid going or at least figure out when to be extra cautious.

The more you face them, the less you worry about them. And eventually you can build equipment that make you feel almost invincible against them.

This wont remove the fear of the deeper parts initially, but with exploration, the deeper parts start to feel relaxing instead of terrifying.

How long into the game do you find him?

Spent $35 on this a while ago, great game but i got so scared of water and deep sea creatures after 40 hours. Couldn’t finish it.

This is a bit of a spoiler but that's not even the biggest sea creature in the game. It's small compared to the size of some of the creatures you find in the deepest part of the ocean in that game.

Gotta play this in VR one day.

It's a terrifying horror game for everyone!

honestly once i got below the first “level” and into the lost river, it wasnt so scary. the real fear for me is being at the top of the water and not seeing the bottom but i feel safer with a monster in a cave i can see the walls lol

And that they did it without the initial intention to make a terror game is brilliant! Because of that, they did not focus on any horror elements at all. It’s all in the mission to improve the atmosphere, make it more immersive. Letting the ocean do its effect by its own.

Make sure you play the VR version next time you revisit it... Its a masterpiece!!!

It didnt help when the pda points out the biome has 9/13 traits that cause extreme terror in the human mind. Thanks...

Just floating above a void where I can’t see the bottom is enough to drive me crazy.