Subnautica

 PlayStation 4
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 290 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 217 out of 290
  2. Mixed: 42 out of 290
  3. Negative: 31 out of 290
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  1. JasonR98
    May 14, 2021
    7
    Loved this game but despite it being out for a few years now the bugs and glitches are awful, they happen very frequent and they vary from areas not spawning in, not being able to move, the game freezing and crashing and more. The developers really have no excuse for this there’s no reason as to why they can’t fix this but instead they focus on more getting more money by bringing out aLoved this game but despite it being out for a few years now the bugs and glitches are awful, they happen very frequent and they vary from areas not spawning in, not being able to move, the game freezing and crashing and more. The developers really have no excuse for this there’s no reason as to why they can’t fix this but instead they focus on more getting more money by bringing out a sequel, The loading times are awful as well.… Expand
  2. Moonglowatcher
    Jul 23, 2022
    7
    The game is absolutely amazing in every point, the only thing that ruined my game experience was the several crashes more than 15 times on my PS4 pro with an SSD hard drive.
  3. Rbox
    Dec 19, 2018
    6
    Allthough SN is a gripping experience (I've been playing preview since February 2018) the enormous amount of bugs and performance issues take the whole game down. Immersion is constantly and completely broken due to those 2. Still I keep on playing. I want this game to be good so much. But alas the developer chose to put their time into DLC instead of fixing the problems
  4. awolcz
    Dec 6, 2018
    6
    I really like the concept and gameplay mechanics. This is what I expected from No Man's Sky. I like the game and atmosphere. It's scary and yet entertaining. Unfortunately, game is not ported well. Even on my PS4 Pro, I have huge FPS drops. After travelling long distance, game sometimes drops to like 2 - 3 FPS and almost completely freezes. It needs to be restarted to work fine again.I really like the concept and gameplay mechanics. This is what I expected from No Man's Sky. I like the game and atmosphere. It's scary and yet entertaining. Unfortunately, game is not ported well. Even on my PS4 Pro, I have huge FPS drops. After travelling long distance, game sometimes drops to like 2 - 3 FPS and almost completely freezes. It needs to be restarted to work fine again. Also, assigning items to quickslot menu is a pain. You can not simply assign tool to specific slot or even remove it. You can only add it on first place, while rest of items is moved one position further and last is removed. Hopefully they resolve performance issues soon so I can improve the score.… Expand
  5. MENZ0
    Dec 13, 2018
    5
    I really was anticipating for this game to come out on PS4, but sadly cannot enjoy playing Subnautica. Firstly, this is because of performance issues and secondly, some problems I have with the actual content of the game.

    Here are the performance issues: -The biggest problem is that approximately 40% of the time the game will crash when I save, making me repeat 45 minutes of progress    I really was anticipating for this game to come out on PS4, but sadly cannot enjoy playing Subnautica. Firstly, this is because of performance issues and secondly, some problems I have with the actual content of the game.

    Here are the performance issues:

    -The biggest problem is that approximately 40% of the time the game will crash when I save, making me repeat 45 minutes of progress multiple times.
    -The game freezes for 2 seconds when I pop-up to breath some air.
    - When I travel faster through the water the frames will drop to single digits or even freeze occasionally.
    - When I dive down from the water surface and look down at a seafloor that is more than 150m deep, there will not be a seafloor at all, but just darkness. Then as I swim closer, the surface will be loaded in with square surfaces at a time (this looks real ugly).
    - Pop-in is reliably immersion-breaking in areas with vines and mushroom-like statures.
    - Sometimes a square surface won't be loaded and you can look through the bottom of the map.

    Now I can imagine the game would be pretty beautiful and enjoyable if it actually functioned, but there are some problems I have with the game's design. First of, I do not like to read in a game. Most information about the game-mechanics are in your menu which you just have to read through. Explain the game to me in a cutscene or dialogue that I actually enjoy listening to. I already found this annoying with Breath of the Wild, so this might be a personal issue.
    However, if you don't read anything there isn't much to do. You go through the water and scan everything to build cool vehicles or a base, but there is no real purpose for the game it seems. There are no characters you'll meet, water and food isn't a real problem, and after a while you have found most of the mechanical parts and it gets kinda grindy to find the ones you haven't.
    Also I have to look up multiple things on the internet as certain aspects are never explained to me. Why can't I recharge my submarine? Where do I find Cave Sulfur? Why can't I build the primary chamber of my base?
    Inventory management is also pretty annoying, because in the first place the inventory is small and secondly you only have 5 hotkeys and 10 tools you'll need. Just give me a wheel where I can select tools from just like any other game? :l

    In the end, I have quite playing Subnautica after 15 hours of playtime as my immersion was continually broken by the pop-in and I kept losing saves and apart from all that I didn't feel pushed by the game to progress. This all makes it hard for me to give the game more than a 5.    … Expand
  6. SplitMind
    May 30, 2021
    5
    Am I playing the same game as all these rave reviews? I can't even give the game a proper review because it's such a stunted experience. The game drops you literally in the middle of the ocean with minimal guidance and signposting, and of course your ship is broken and you are under-equipped.

    However, none of the above is even the real problem. What I couldn't get past was the constant    Am I playing the same game as all these rave reviews? I can't even give the game a proper review because it's such a stunted experience. The game drops you literally in the middle of the ocean with minimal guidance and signposting, and of course your ship is broken and you are under-equipped.

    However, none of the above is even the real problem. What I couldn't get past was the constant meandering around the ocean scavenging for ingredients like looking for a needle in a haystack. This is extremely repetitive and extremely tedious. Every now and then I thought I was getting somewhere, such as when I crafted the scanner and the flashlight, but all these added were another tedious element to the gameplay.

    I played the game in free mode because having to babysit my character's hunger and thirst sounded ridiculous, but even in free mode having to constantly dive in and out of water for oxygen became incredibly irritating quickly. The creative mode that removes all survival mechanics also disables the story so it's a pointless mode I never even tried.

    I noticed many people mentioning performance problems, which I fortunately encountered very few of. The framerate definitely suffered and I saw some fish getting stuck in the environment, but nothing game-breaking. Having said that, reports of losing save files make me glad to give this up after just a few hours.

    This is yet another game that had amazing potential and I really looked forward to it, but was quite disappointed. It's just inane, tedious and repetitive. Fortunately I got it free during the pandemic so I'm not going to complain about losing too much. Avoid.    … Expand
  7. drSpockwa
    Jan 26, 2021
    7
    Great story. Fun exploration and crafting. Adequate graphics and audio. Buggy. Game crashed at least 6 time and my vehicles got stuck in walls/floors multiple times.
  8. AsaZimbabwe
    Mar 30, 2020
    5
    not terrible, but after about three hours i never turned it on again, probably never will. glad i got it at a discount, but wish i hadn't spent the twenty bucks in the first place, there is a downside to digital purchases.
  9. ToshLichev
    Apr 19, 2021
    5
    Gotta be honest, I only played Subnautica for the platinum trophy and during my playthrough the game seemed more like a half-finished proof of concept rather than a full on game. The bugs were horrendous and the crashes constant. My biggest fear wasn't the underwater monsters - it was the fact that my game could hard crash at any point for no reason.
  10. BlackAdderRozza
    Jan 13, 2020
    7
    I LOVE this game to bits, I've watched Jacksepticeye play it on YouTube and decided to buy it for myself but whenever I play it the floor in some of the areas near the start of the game, I think it is where the early-game mushroom forest is, just doesn't spawn and it stops me from playing it because I don't want to get far in the game and then have it turn out I can't access some of theI LOVE this game to bits, I've watched Jacksepticeye play it on YouTube and decided to buy it for myself but whenever I play it the floor in some of the areas near the start of the game, I think it is where the early-game mushroom forest is, just doesn't spawn and it stops me from playing it because I don't want to get far in the game and then have it turn out I can't access some of the later areas that are down the holes which makes me worry about accidentally losing a prawn suit whenever I get to making one, I have submitted many reports about this in game on my PS4 and it has been months since I've played it because I wanted to give time to see if they'd update it but no such luck so PLEASE do something about it because this is one of my favourite games ever. It is because of this bug/glitch that I haven't given this game a 10 which I would have very gladly done otherwise. Please fix it I love your game SO MUCH… Expand
  11. Dairba
    Apr 26, 2020
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. As a gamer, this title holds a feeling of paradise: you have a full open ocean to explore, tons of items and vehicles to craft, and a vast array of creatures to study and learn about. The lore is intriguing, and the gameplay is fantastic. With all of this being said, I would recommend this game on PC, not PS4. Though I do not have a PC, my girlfriend is fully willing to let me use hers. Which I am thankful for, since I discovered the hard way that the console version of this game has atrocious, game breaking bugs. After every save, something about my Seamoth is violated: at one point it deleted all of my upgrade modules that I worked hard to get. Another time I had docked it in my Cyclops, and after I had disembarked to explore a wreckage and returned to my Cyclops, I had discovered that it had deleted my Seamoth entirely, though it claimed it was still docked. Furthermore, the scanner rooms will eventually develop a glitch where it will detect materials that are no longer there, or will detect the wrong materials. The crabsnakes, when trying to hide in the jellyshrooms, will glitch-float out of their hidey hole, sticking straight up like a pole, very clearly not hidden. Though not game breaking this last one does break immersion. Environment rendering is terrible, and sometimes I will even be able to swim directly through the incomplete rendered walls in caves, allowing me to escape with ease. I am unaware of if these bugs are in the PC version, but they are definitely in the PS4 version. Under normal circumstances, I would have been fine paying the 20 something odd dollars for this game, but as time passed, I wished it could be spent on Steam instead.

    Now, I feel it important to note: the game itself is still amazing. I watched playthroughs from Markiplier in high school, and enjoyed watching it as much as he enjoyed playing it. I can only hope that the PC version is still better patched, more smooth, and does not contain the same bugs that exist to mess with my hard work and effort that lurk in the console version.

    If the bugs were fixed, I would give this game a 9/10, maybe even a solid 10/10. But despite repetitive feedback submissions on my console, providing detailed descriptions of bugs and issues, there has been no addressing the issue from the devs, and I honestly doubt there ever will be.

    Invest in the PC version, not the console. Avoid the console versions at all costs.    … Expand
  12. Eddie_
    Jul 21, 2020
    6
    Awesome concept but has gamebreaking issues on the PS4 for example every time you return to the surface your PS4 will soil itself.
  13. clanky9
    Jun 14, 2021
    6
    Sorry but i cant give this game more than 6/10 i must admit that this game visually looks great but there are a lot of bugs in this game on ps4 version. I only played it because it was free.
  14. doubleOrts
    Apr 17, 2021
    5
    Game is a blast, but runs like absolute sh*t. Takes 5 minutes to load and lags every time I press a button. Oh, and schools of fish and even grass clip through your base, completely ruining any immersion.

    Would easily have been 9 or 10 if not for the performance.
  15. sEBq78
    Nov 8, 2022
    5
    Beginning of the game is at score 8 but more u progress you realize there is nothing more than just gathering resources and crafting, crafting and .. crafting... after few hours it gets sooo boring...
  16. aaronnmp96
    Feb 3, 2023
    6
    The game is very good, although it is a bit tedious at times, and ends up being repetitive, the survival mode is good.

Awards & Rankings

57
#57 Best PS4 Game of 2018
38
#38 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. CD-Action
    Mar 25, 2019
    80
    The PS4 edition of the brilliant survival game has some performance problems (framerate dropping, environment popping up really badly if you travel fast) and navigating in three dimensions is much less intuitive with a controller than with a mouse, which did cost me my life sometimes. These flaws do not disqualify the console port though, so if you can’t enjoy Subnautica on PC, consider giving it a shot on PS4, as there are very few such games nowadays. [02/2019, p.35]
  2. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Jan 27, 2019
    80
    Few games are this consistently surprising, let alone this well designed. [Issue#158, p.88]
  3. GameCritics
    Jan 15, 2019
    65
    I have rarely seen a game go from being absolutely sublime to absolutely awful, but Subnautica manages to pull it off. The first 25-30 hours are a superb sci-fi survival experience that I would happily recommend to anyone, and I’ll cherish that time under the waves for years to come. But the endgame? It really does ruin a good thing. If the first chunk of the adventure were scored on its own, it would rate much higher. But as a complete experience? The issues are too large to ignore.
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