love below zero but the voice acting and more emphasis on storylines/characters made it feel less spooky and desolate, which was such a big part of the first subnautica. it truly felt like you were just some dude totally alone on an alien world aside for some fish.

It doesn't go nearly as deep either. Figuratively or literally. More like Subnautica 1.5.

4 player co op game as a service

The way of things these days. Make a good game, get a fan base, make the sequel a GAAS with monetization schemes and alienate most of your fan base and hope that the whales make you millions.

Wtf is gaas

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_as_a_service

Release a game designed to continuously drain you of money with a focus on increasing revenue rather than providing the best game possible.

pls no

I’ve been wanting to play Subnautica.
I love games like Outer Wilds that are just about discovery and atmosphere and I love ocean s***.

Check out pacific drive it might be up your alley

incredible that companies see just how often gaas models fail and lead to mass layoffs or company closures and still think "nah we got this"

gaas is either being used incorrectly here or it has multiple meanings, in this case specifically it doesn’t mean battle passes, subscriptions, etc. it can just mean updates. The devs clarified it’ll be just like subnautica 1 and below zero which got early access and updates over time. It’s not gonna be like Destiny for instance.

Hello Subnauts,

A few of you noticed some information shared online by our publisher, KRAFTON 🕵

While some of the news is exciting, we’d like to clarify:

1. Early Access is not intended for release in 2024, but we plan to share a lot more information later this year!

2. In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.

3. The game is not multiplayer-focused. Co-op will be an entirely optional way to play the game. You’ll be able to enjoy the game as a single-player.

As always, we are so proud and incredibly grateful to have such a passionate and engaged community, who love the Subnautica games deeply.

Thanks for keeping an eye out for any news about our progress on the next game.

We’re so excited to show you what website been working on and hope that you love it as much as we do.

– The Subnautica Team

yeah i saw the update. i have no idea why they would announce this as gaas when gaas clearly implies a certain monetization and business strategy. continual updates and an early access model isn't gaas. they either have a terrible copywriter or it was done intentionally to generate headlines

I think the term is evolving, recently there was a lot of buzz about a study that reported that 95% of developers were developing or maintaining gaas and it defined it as just regular updates planned for a game

It makes sense, as opposed to bullshit monetization, you keep updating the game which increases buzz and sales for years to come