Imagine waking up strapped to the chair of your life pod falling from the spaceship you have spent the last months stuck on. You unbuckle yourself and push open the hatch at the top. You look around to see nothing but the ocean. Looking down in the shallows near your pod to see creatures swimming about and coral teaming with life. Looking into the distance you swear to see a creature of unrealistic size leap from the water an unfathomable distance away. Now imagine waking up in a patch of moss. You look around to see the remains of a civilization so crumbled and forgotten that nothing but the landscape itself proves its existence. Upon taking your first breath you must dive into the rubble to avoid one of the few fully biological things that can survive this unforgiving wasteland. Your assailant is a lizard the size of an alligator with the agility of a tiger. Both worlds are vibrant with light and ecosystems of unparalleled potential.

The first game is called Subnautica a survival game where you crash land on an entirely water planet and the second game is called Rain World an other survival game in which you must avoid fatal down pours of rain while dodging anything that wants to kill you (thats everything). Rain World is a great game with an amazing ecosystem and creatures that are more lifelike than any other game out there. However, Subnautica does a better job at telling the whole story of its planet. Subnautica’s gameplay along with what has to be inferred by the player is what leads the ecosystem to rank at the top of the list in many regards.

The first tool that Subnautica has to better paint the picture of it’s ecosystem is the PDA. This is a tablet with an unlockable a description of every creature the player scans during their time in the game. I will be discussing how optional features like this connect things in the ecosystem better than anything in rainworld. Following this I will be comparing the Flora inside Rain World to the Flora inside Subnautica. In doing so I would like to bring up the relationship between the Flora and the Fuana in each game. I will also be drawing your attention to the level of detail tied to the dimension the game is in. The counterpoints I will be addressing will be about the level of AI inside Rain World and Subnautica along with the interaction with other “sentient” species.

Claims

My fist claim is that the PDA in Subnautica allows for species to be described in more depth leading to more connections and complexity.

What this means is that the player is directly fed information. By doing this the developers of subnautica get to include cannon creature behavior that does not have to be shown through game mechanics. This can be seen in the Data Bank Entries such as the Biter. The Biter’s entry comments,” Likely dedicated to detecting the peripheral movement of larger predators, and hungry members of its own species.” This is an important part of understanding the creatures behavior while in the game we never see them turn on each other. Although this is very beniftial for Subnautica it wouldn’t make sense to add it to Rain World because of the games more “figure it out yourself” approach. That being said this, even though it is not perfect, system developes connection in Subnautica’s ecosystem way more then having the player notice creatures in game behavior as in Rain World.

Another claim that will be made is the flora in Subnautica is leagues more in depth then the flora in Rain World.

While there are plants in Rain World most of them do not even have its own name. Subnautica, on the contrary, has new sets of plants for each of its biomes and each plants also has its own PDA entry. In both games the plants interact with the player in multiple ways, but only in Subnautica do we see the plant interact with other creatures. One example of this can be seen in the Crabsnake. This animal can be seen , in game, swimming in and out of jelly shrooms. The closet thing to this in Rain World is the Worm Grass. Worm Grass is a plant that will kill you if you touch it, so you have to ride on the back of Rain Deer, gaint trilegged things with antlers, because the Rain Deer are unaffected by the Worm Grass. In that interaction lies the flaw that the interaction is actually the creatures not interacting. This shows that though Rain World has some of the same things as subnautica, Subnautica has almost everything more flushed out.

Being 3 dimensional lets Subnautica show more detail with how each creature looks and acts.

Rain World is a 2 dimensional pixel game meaning that you only see half of the creatures. This lets the developers take some liberties when creating creatures, but this leaves something to be desired when it comes to creature detail. On the other hand, Subnautica’s design team is able to fully model evey creature from evey angle and therefore provide a better creature design in total. This philosophy can be spread to the rocks and sand that make up the planet of Subnautica. So, while looks may not be everything they do play a part in the design of an ecosystem

Counter Claims

Despite the great things I have said about Subnautica there are some thing that rain world does better, biggest of all being the fact that Rain World has better creature AI leading to better creature interactions.

It is definitely true that Rain World has better creature AI. Each creature is programed with its own AI that has 6 different variable leading to different personalities.Using this personlalized AI the creatures in Rain World can be seen leaping through the air punching on its prey. Although Subnautica doesn’t have any creatures that will jump through those hoops still thrives on the AI it has now. There are also cases in which the predators in Subnautica will be seen eating other creatures and leaving fish juice clouds in the water. Though it is primitive compared to Rain World it has the basics solidified and the ability to be developed into something great.

Subnautica is lacking interaction with other sentient species

The other biggest thing Rain World has over Subnautica is interaction with “sentient” species. This is because the most interaction you get is radio messages you listen to. While in Rain World you develop a relationship with the other sentient species called scavengers. These interactions develop the sense that the player is a part of the ecosystem and a small part at that.

So while there are some flaws in Subnautica’s ecosystem that Rain World doesn’t have This is made up for by the multitude of different things that Subnautica does better than Rain World. Whether this be creature descriptions. Another thing is the level of flora. Finally being 3 dimensional. I would like to note that while Subnautica is in my opinion better, it is up to you to play both games and find out for yourself.