I mentioned I picked up Subnautica again, and it’s more fun than I remember it was my last time with it. Why? Because I’m kind of cheating. Hang on, hang on, hear me out….

Subnautica is not an easy game for the easily distracted. For those of us who constantly forget what we were doing because there’s a new shiny thing to focus on, Subnautica can be brutal. A large part of it is survival and crafting, which means my internal monologue goes something like this: “I need some copper for the… oh wait, if I get more silver I can craft the wiring kit for that torpedo, but I need aerogel… what do I need for aerogel? Oh, gel sacks, right, OK, where’s my Seamoth, ha, I forgot I docked it outside instead of the moonpool… oh crap oxygen! swim up! up up up up…! Whew! Wait, where am I? Where’s the damn Seamoth? Ah! Here you are… good, now what was I doing? Silver? Or was it gold? I wanted gold for the CPU so I can craft… oh right! I need copper.”

The game’s a lot of fun, and it rewards you for exploring, but when your brain constantly works like the above, you tend to miss a lot. This is why I started looking online for things like where to find X, and watching a few helpful YouTube videos. I also learned which plants I can grow around my base so I can craft what I need more easily, instead of running around and forgetting what I’m looking for. Because I played about 2/3 of the game before, I know the basic plot and what’s going on, so I’m taking my time now preparing for each new horrifying level and enjoying building my base and putting more details into it.

Another very helpful aspect of searching for answers online is finding the parts for blueprints I need. The game gives you recipes, or blueprints, for different tools. Some of those are required to get to a certain point; otherwise, you can’t progress. Certain materials are not available to you until later in the game as part of how it’s built, which makes sense, but it means I can tell when something fairly basic is missing. In order to find blueprints, you need to scan certain wrecks and parts in the game, and you need to find where these parts are. They tend to be in certain areas, however, where exactly in those areas is random.

For example, I needed a propulsion cannon to push crates that blocked my way to a place I needed to go. I knew I needed to go there because I was at a point in the game where this is indicated by the audio logs I picked up, and also, I played this part before. I was looking at the ingredients needed for the cannon and noticed they’re very basic, the sort of things you get really early on. However, I only had one part of the cannon scanned; in order to get the full blueprint, I needed to find one more part, which I never did. Because I knew I needed this cannon at this point, I looked online to see where this part is located. It still took a bit of time, as some YouTube videos are more helpful than others, but I was able to find it because I knew exactly where to look - and even then, it was hiding in a tough spot to reach (again, not by design).

If you ask me, the randomness of where these parts can be a bit of a design flaw, especially when something is trivial to the game, which is exactly why this sort of “cheating” is justified. I got what I needed, and the game flowed exactly as it was designed, with everything else clicking into place. But not all cheating I do is the “good kind” like the above; some of it is cheesy. Subnautica is a scary game, the sort of game that freaks you out with the unknown. And it’s good at freaking you out, believe you me.

Because I played the game before and had already seen most (maybe even all) enemies, I took a peek at some fighting strategy videos against the hardest creatures to take some of the sting out of the fear. I wanted to be ready and enjoy without being scared all the time, ok? Being a bit scared is enough. It also doesn’t help that the game only has exactly one save game slot per game either, so if you really mess up somehow, you’re screwed. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen too often… but it can. Which makes me worry. Which takes away some of the fun element. So yeah, some fear control goes a long way. Exploring is still fun and stressful in the right amount that pulls me back.

See? Sometimes a bit of corner-cutting helps.