This is the sequel to the award-winning original game, Subnautica. The game will be released on PlayStation 4, and PS5 this coming May 14. He also lives as Quemaqua on Twitter and YouTube (and most places on the internet).Game company Unknown Worlds has recently released a new gameplay video of video game Subnautica: Below Zero during the latest State of Play. You can find him occasionally ranting at, and can email him directly at michael.r(at)screenrant(dot)com. He now resides in California with his wife, a rescue dog, and a mischievous Hallowe'en cat, where he plays far too much Dark Souls and reads too much about deep Elder Scrolls lore.
An Asian Studies and Religious Studies graduate of CSU Chico, he has lived in Japan, hunting through the narrow aisles of game stores from Osaka to Tokyo, and has lived in the cloisters of a Buddhist monastery in Ningbo, China.
He has formerly been the managing editor of and the indie games editor at Goomba Stomp. In addition to Screen Rant, his work has appeared in such varied publications as Goomba Stomp, IGN Pakistan, UNC Charlotte's Sanskrit, and print anthologies from Despumation, Solarcide, and Pantheon Magazine. Riser is an author, freelance writer, and gaming features editor at Screen Rant. Both games are compelling takes on a unique idea that few other games have attempted to emulate on the same scale, and both are likely to be beloved by fans for years to come. Its slightly more accelerated experience will certainly appeal to many players, and the personal, immediately compelling story will motivate anyone who struggled to connect with Subnautica’s more open-ended narrative, yet Subnautica presents a more expansive, survival-focused experience, with a more oppressive feeling of loneliness, wider sea regions, and fewer on-land areas to break up the exhilarating deep-sea discomfort. Ultimately, while many of these things can be considered hard improvements to the original game’s formula, Below Zero doesn’t make Subnautica obsolete. The Snowfox is also entirely new, and this land-only vehicle helps players quickly traverse snowy tundra, a necessity given the increased amount of on-land exploration required for progress, with severe penalties for exposure to cold or getting stuck in Below Zero’s new dangerous weather patterns. The Seatruck feels like a slightly snappier, more mobile replacement for Subnautica’s Seamoth, and can be upgraded for versatility. Traversal has been overhauled along the same lines. It also means that Subnautica: Below Zero pushes more story elements more quickly, preferring player motivation to the slow burn of Subnautica’s gradual narrative. There’s a more fully-formed sense that people with their own motivations lived on 4546B, not just crash survivors or corporate colonists.
This concrete personality allows her to make comments about the world as she moves through it, and the added context and perspective makes Below Zero’s immediate story elements feel far more imperative. Players now control Robin Ayou as their avatar, rather than the voiceless stand-in of the first game, and she has a personal motivation for coming to 4546B: seeking to discover the true fate of her sister. This emphasis on personality extends to the main character as well. Even the player’s PDA assistant has gotten an upgrade, doubling down on the original game’s subtle dry humor with a little more personality and a lot more snark. This leads to a cast of deeper characters and recordings of conversations between them, which combine with snappy writing to keep the narrative moving. What’s also readily apparent upon starting the sequel is that where Subnautica opted for a vast, lonely experience, Below Zero provides something more compact, using story to propel players forward.