HUGE downgrade in every single aspect possible to the first game.
The environment and biomes are incredibly shallow, unoriginal, and uninteresting. The map is much smaller compared to the original, and the bast part, over half of it is made up of huge, EMPTY icy surfaces, in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UNDERWATER game. Sure, the first game had the islands, but those had good reasons to be there, this game has no reason to like this.
Story in this game is also the most cliche, uninspired POS, giving you no reason to actually want to explore the world, i had no desire or idea why the ♥♥♥♥ should i care about any of this, unlike with the first game. Also, do you really expect me to believe that some old hag survived all these years alone on the planet? Definitely believeable devs, and not woke at all!
As for the characters, there is no good character to speak of. As if it wasn't enough you play as a typical sassy black woman, with only other characters worth mentioning being an unlikeable old hag from the first game, your black scientist sister(wow so many black scientists in this game, surely not DEI, chud!), who's just as uninteresting as the MC, and Al-An, who constantly yaps in your ear in the most annoying way possible, because clearly the devs don't understand that the eerie, lonely atmosphere of the first game was partially what made it so good.
I don't think there's a single enemy/animal in this game i would call interesting, they're all just incredibly annoying and loud, or just completely forgettable and non-threatening, unlike the original game, which had all the memorable leviathans. I honestly couldn't name you a single interesting animal from this game, definitely not by their name. The penguins are kinda cool though, i'll atleast give them that.
Overall, this game is a forgettable, incredibly shallow 'sequel' (if you can even call it that) to the original, beloved (even by me) subnautica, and i regret ever buying this and spending my time on it.
