Subnautica, the underwater survival sport about being an area castaway, is crawling out of its early entry shell and into a shinier full release shell tomorrow. It’s been in growth for 4 years and it’s “pretty close to done”, says Charlie Cleveland, director of Unknown Worlds Entertainment. But there are plans for post-release additions, together with the potential of an icy biome with new creatures and frosty hazards. These plans aren’t closing, stated Cleveland in an interview with us, however he additionally says they’re “80-90 percent sure” they’re going to make a paid enlargement of some form or one other. Read on for extra particulars and important context that I, a dastardly journalist, can not talk in an intro.
First of all, the main target for the crew remains to be on the discharge model, he says. When requested if the crew was going so as to add new biomes or creatures post-release, or in the event that they had been keen to maneuver on to one thing new, Cleveland stated “a bit of both”.
“We’re going to see how 1.0 does,” he says. “Subnautica is a really costly sport. People assume we’re tremendous indie and I assume we kinda are but it surely’s, like, most likely a 9 million greenback sport to make. If we simply have the crew making new biomes and stuff, and we’re spending tens of millions of to do it, we actually have to verify it pays off. So we’re going to be watching launch intently.
“We’re about 80-90 % certain we’re going to make a paid enlargement. I don’t know what number of we need to do however there’s one particularly we need to try this I believe would match very well with the sport. So we’re planning on doing that.
“I know we’re going to do maintenance patches and stuff like that to the main game, and we’re probably going to add some small things but this is not like a ‘game as a service’ where we just keep adding to it, it’s a singleplayer game and it’s pretty close to done.”
But what precisely would the brand new stuff be?
“New biomes,” he says, “and fill[ing] out the story in different ways. We were talking about doing an ice world, like an Arctic area. I don’t know if we should talk about that now because we want people to just focus on release but we definitely could chat about that more when we have stuff to show. But yeah, we’re excited about that.”
A frozen biome is an concept that the builders have beforehand explored of their roadmap Trello (the studio’s noticeboard that anybody can go and study). They’ve even compiled a list of ideas for creatures, tools and a few sub-zero phenomenon they’d prefer to see, together with a swordfish, an algae bomb and salty ‘brinicles’ (as seen in BBC’s Frozen Planet). I’m significantly fearful of the outline of the “Atramentous Expanse”.
Atramentous Expanse – This part is darkish as ink, under a number of meters of stable ice, blocking out all mild in some areas. It lacks bioluminescence because of the freezing temperatures, and is host to maze like ice cavern programs, and biofilms that are each lethal and interested in mild sources. Due to restricted visibility, underwater UAV programs are used in an effort to monitor and report incoming hazard.
There’s a whole lot of neat concepts in that Google Doc however, once more, it’s only a Google Doc for now. We haven’t seen any of it carried out in-game, and there’s no assure it’s going to seem. But let’s hope.
Cleveland additionally mentioned mods and the potential of multiplayer, each of that are kind of a “no”. Where modding is worried, he’s frightened supporting this might be a whole lot of work with out a lot reward.
“We made the game we wanted to make with Subnautica, so it’s less exciting for us to spend a bunch of effort to have the community undo it or to make splintered versions… I love mods, but I don’t see the point.”
He does point out a somewhat janky co-op mod any person made after decompiling the sport (“I don’t know how the heck they’re doing it”) however says that though there could also be tentative steps throughout the studio to see whether it is possible, official multiplayer is “probably not going to happen”. So don’t get your hopes up.
We’ll put up the complete interview with the director later within the week, by which we discuss extra in regards to the horror and tranquillity of the open ocean. We’ll even have a overview of the ultimate sport tomorrow. So preserve your peepers open for these.
