What proceeded after this was hours of having fun exploring, base-building, trying to find Margeurit and track down these Alterra bases which I assume will progress the main story. I had my first encounter with Margeurit there, giving me a new beacon signal, and I found the Alterra Facilities map. This lead to a cascading effect of chasing leads that I assumed were the main story, and inevitably a lot of frustration. Whatever the reason or circumstances, I found myself exploring delta island before the architect sanctuary. I can't tell you exactly why, maybe I thought my equipment wasn't advanced enough to get as deep as the beacon appeared to be, or maybe I was just more interested in whatever might be on the island. I decide to go to Delta Island before investigating the Architect Sanctuary. And this is when I made the biggest mistake of my entire play-through. As I continued playing, gathering materials and exploring I had multiple new beacon signals appear. But when I found it, it reinforced this notion to me that my primary goal was to discover what happened to Sam.

I found it long before I got the signal that is intended to lead you to it.

It's hard to remember the exact order of events that led to some serious missteps by me, but I think my first mistake was accidentally discovering Outpost Zero within the first 30 minutes of playing. To find out what happened to my sister.Īnd therein lies the beginning of my problem, and I want to be clear: I am not without blame in how my play-through happened. To me, that was my primary goal when I landed on 4546B. I quickly found myself invested in Robin's story, I wanted to uncover what happened to Sam and learn all there is to know about Sector Zero and what Alterra was doing there. As much as I would have loved 'Subnautica that looks different with new features', the expanded dialogue, on-land adventures, new vehicles and character development are all refreshing ideas that I thoroughly enjoy. I also want to commend UWE for not being afraid to try new things. I played Subnautica for the 3rd time in preparation for the Below Zero release, and Below Zero brings that same wonder and terror that I've come to love in Subnautica. Before I delve in to why my first play-through was frustration-inducing I wanted to say I think this game is beautiful.

Subnautica below zero diamond