Subnautica Reviews

Subnautica is ranked in the 93rd percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
Liked-a-lot
Jun 27, 2021

Subnautica is a challenging and gorgeous game. I love finding new creatures, and they even change with the in-game “seasons”. Frankly, I can’t see how this game could possibly get boring since I am enjoying myself so much, and because I have a lot of story and environment left to discover, I have decided to do a short series of articles as I continue playing through this title. Look for upcoming “Summer in Subnautica” articles if you want to follow my underwater journey!

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8.6 / 10.0
Jun 4, 2021

Subnautica is a universe where we lose ourselves for hours creating our own world and learning to live with our environment in a fight for survival that is both exciting and relaxing: a unique experience that you should not miss and that will catch you: How a wave, Subnautica is rocking the player and makes it impossible for us to escape from its waters

Review in Spanish | Read full review

7 / 10.0
May 20, 2021

While Subnautica remains a brilliantly immersive and addictive survival adventure, the PS5 upgrade delivers less than we expected. Technically, the game is very similar to its successor, Subnautica: Below Zero, and yet falls short on both performance and visual quality in comparison. A free upgrade is always welcome, but perhaps Subnautica PS5 has automatically been made redundant by its superior sequel. Existing Subnautica players with a PS5 get a nice facelift, but there's little to justify this edition for newcomers.

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Nintendo Life
PJ O'Reilly
Top Critic
9 / 10
May 13, 2021

When Unknown Worlds announced they were bringing this one to Switch we were hugely excited, this is one of our all-time favourite games after all, but it was excitement tempered with a degree of scepticism as to how on earth they'd manage to cram the entire experience onto Switch in a properly playable manner. As it turns out, we needn't have worried as this is a super solid port that - besides a few loading stutters here and there and some scenery pop-in that's present in every other version of the game - successfully delivers one of the very best survival experiences on any platform to Nintendo's hybrid console.

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8 / 10.0
May 11, 2021

Subnautica is a survival and narrative experience that stands as a benchmark for the genre. The Switch version itself certainly has its drawbacks, but not enough to weigh down the experience too much. Some of them do admittedly affect gameplay mildly, but the strength of Subnautica still pushes through.

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Unscored
Jan 9, 2020
Why Subnautica Is The Only Survival Game I've Enjoyed (Review) video thumbnail
GameMAG
Top Critic
7 / 10
Mar 2, 2019

Subnautica is able to grab your attention and draw into the depths of the alien world, but many errors, lack of a map and often incomprehensible tasks, along with a failed final part of the game, cause disappointment.

Review in Russian | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Jan 17, 2019

Subnautica is not without its issues, but it successfully manages to combine a strong sense of exploration and discovery with an interesting story hook and an exceptional soundtrack to make it one of the very best examples of the genre.

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9 / 10.0
Jan 9, 2019

Aside from a few technical issues, Subnautica is one of the best survival games out there. Not only is the world to explore beautiful but the narrative will keep pulling you along,

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9 / 10.0
Jan 6, 2019

Subnautica is a survival horror game that should be one of the best of all time, but its optimization harms it drastically. It's immersive, has a chaotic story, enjoyable visuals, incredible sound effects and gameplay that gets almost everything right.

Review in Portuguese | Read full review

8.5 / 10.0
Dec 29, 2018

Unknown Worlds Entertainment have crafted a truly unique underwater adventure/survival title and I am very excited for when they release Subnautica: Below Zero.

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8.2 / 10.0
Dec 24, 2018

Subnautica is a very solid example of the best survival games in recent years.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

Dec 22, 2018

If you're into resource gathering, crafting and exploring, then Subnautica is simply a title that you have to play.

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8.5 / 10.0
Dec 20, 2018

Subnautica is one of the better and relatively unique takes on the open-world survival genre that not only executes its expected features well but also provides new ones that help it stand out among its competitors.

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Digiato
Mohammad Amin Behtoui
Top Critic
95 / 100
Dec 17, 2018

Unlike No Man's Sky which failed to deliver on its promises, Subnautica shows us how a game with worthy content succeeds and doesn't need any heavy ad campaigns.

Review in Persian | Read full review

8 / 10
Dec 17, 2018

Subnautica sees you submerged in a vast and utterly breathtaking underwater world, teeming with secrets and polished off with an unsettling atmosphere that instigates a real sense of thrill as you play.

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Dec 14, 2018

Subnautica is something different in the survival genre, with a well-crafted underwater world providing some variety to its hunter-gatherer gameplay.

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Dec 10, 2018

While it’s by no means a perfect game, the sheer aspect of exploration more than makes up for it and potentially offers hours upon hours of pure fun

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Dec 10, 2018

Despite the performance issues, Subnautica is definitely a title that you shouldn't sleep on. The open world exploration and survival mechanics are on point, and the world is massive, deep, and rich in detail; it's just a shame that it's being held back a little bit by problems with how it runs.

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9.2 / 10.0
Dec 7, 2018

I honestly hope this becomes a longstanding series, it's simply that good.

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