Subnautica

John: There’s something to be said for waiting for a game to be out of early access before you play it for the first time. While exploring Subnautica across its development would certainly have been a fascinating experience, I was so pleased I’d been disorganised enough to put off playing it for quite so long. Because the finished project (which is still growing and being added to in some Subnautica

It takes survival mechanisms and puts them into a story-first world of aquatic exploration, then has the enormous good sense to let you happen upon that story in your own time. If you want to spend absolutely ages just swimming about with the surface-level fishes, you’re good. If you want to dedicate your time to building an opulent underwater mansion, go for it. Or if you want to start uncovering the secrets of this alien planet, it’s all there to find.

Added to that, progress is incessantly rewarded with more of what it does best: amazing sea creatures with which to interact, run (swim) from, or collect. I was loving Subnautica when all I had were some flippers and hope, and I was loving it when I had a ridiculously complicated submarine that I’d somehow crafted from scrap metal and weeds. It’s a game that evolves alongside you, adapting itself to your greater abilities, expanding and deepening with more and more surprises. And it’s gentle, peaceful, and deeply intriguing.