Hey Moonbreakers!
We've been hard at work adding new features and new Crew to the game. But now it's finally time to add something else - two new Captains! But first…
We like to say that if we're not embarrassed by our first release into Early Access, we waited too long.
Some of you might remember that the first version of Subnautica didn't even have… a sub. Seriously, the Cyclops was nowhere to be found. Nor did it have any survival elements. I'll never forget reading words on a Steam review that said "How DARE you release a survival game without eating and drinking?!" At that point, we hadn't even been thinking about the game in terms of survival. But those words just kept ringing in my ears.
Players were clearly thinking of the game as a survival game, and they "showed us" that it was. So we added food and water and kept moving forward. That's a long way of saying that even though we knew three Captains, ~40 Crew, no tutorial and no single-player was a pretty threadbare first release, we released it anyways knowing that the feedback we'd get would help us immensely.
We didn't know how much of the core game systems needed revisiting along the way, but we're so much better for it. So, Beasts & Blooms (releasing this week or next) is the first addition of two new playstyles, with many more to come.
Beasts
Xuna is our robotic "beastmaster", who plays as a control archetype. Instead of her being able to attack, she has a robot dog that becomes disabled when it would otherwise be destroyed. As an expert robot-maker, Xuna can repair her trusty Toltacan by getting close to it. She can also use her robotic parrot to create areas of soft cover, and assign her insect drone to repeatedly heal any Crew she likes. All together, this gives her a nice toolkit for controlling game pacing and regions of the map.
Blooms
Gardener Xo is our "gardener" class, who is all about creating, growing and nurturing (he is also the first of a new culture, called The Servants of Yi-Aweti - more to come there). The Gardener can create spiky Thornvines, which damage anything they touch. He also automatically "nurtures" all friendly units nearby, increasing their max health temporarily. A nurtured Thornvine turns into a mobile sentry, which slowly marches towards enemies and automatically shoots them every turn. He feels a bit like the Gorge from Natural Selection 2.
Crew
We've also added five new Crew, which will unlock new gameplay. Generate more Cinder and place bounties on other units with the Fixer, give any Crew single-use flamethrowers, grenades and mines with Arms Dealer Yuki, throw friendly or rival units back to the Bridge with Pacifier Ohtli, blanket units with multiple piles of corrosive particles with Dr. Feelbad or deafen and push Crew with Whispers. These new units should add more variety and playstyles to the game, and we have many more Crew (and all new cultures) on the way.
There's tons more in this update though. For more details, check out this video we just posted, where I show the rest:
We hope you love the direction we're heading with Beasts & Blooms and enjoy playing it arrives this week or next (just got to squash some bugs first).
Please keep your feedback coming and we hope you're enjoying the Early Access experience!
See you in the Reaches,
Charlie.