Subnautica is a hit game that focuses on allowing players to test their mettle against an unforgiving undersea world.
Players are stranded alone with only a few basic tools and a lifepod and then tasked with not only escaping an alien planet, but figuring out how to cure a mysterious disease at the same time.
While Subnautica and its sequel, Below Zero, are both games in which you can lose a great deal of time, you’ll eventually want to play something else. If you’re looking for something similar, you might want to try out one of the games below.
Let’s see some great games like Subnautica below:
1) No Man’s Sky
If your favorite part of playing Subnautica was base-building, you definitely need to give No Man’s Sky a look.
A game that certainly has a very complicated history, the current iteration of the game places players in the shoes of an intergalactic explorer who is given free reign to do virtually anything that he or she wants while make his or her way across a mysterious expanse of space.
Though the narrative of No Man’s Sky is even less straight-forward than that of Subnautica, it is still a great game for those who love to craft bases and vehicles.
No only can players build their own bases on multiple worlds, but players can now build everything from spaceships to mechs as long as they have all of the right materials.
If you’re looking for a game that feels like Subnautica without being underwater, this might be a great game for you.
2) Outer Wilds
If your favorite part of Subnautica was digging into the mysteries of the world, you might want to take a look at Outer Wilds.
This sleep hit puts players in control of a lone explorer who is tasked with saving his entire planet – a task made all the harder by the fact that he only has a limited time to find out what’s going to destroy his world before time resets itself.
Outer Wilds is absolutely a game about time-loops. You’ll find yourself exploring a small solar system over and over again as you look for small pieces of information that can teach you how to overcome an oncoming disaster.
The really interesting part of the game is that it’s virtually impossible to solve the problem in a single loop – you’ll fail again and again as you piece together the mystery of how to save your world.
Though it doesn’t feature base building or many survival elements, the writing’s tone is still very similar to that found in Subnautica.
3) The Forest
One thing that’s not talked about quite enough when discussing Subnautica is how scary the game can be.
The idea of being stuck alone in a foreign environment can be terrifying, especially when you’re in those areas that have predators around every corner.
The Forest centers its entire gameplay loop around this feeling, stranding players in a mysterious forest and surrounding them with cannibalistic killers.
The Forest has a narrative arc, but much of what makes the game stand out has to do with simple survival.
You can gather materials and build both tools and structures, both of which are vital to survival.
This game has much more of a straightforward horror bent than Subnautica, which can make it a perfect choice for those fans who are looking to get scared.
4) Valheim
Valheim is one of those independent games that made a huge splash on the gaming scene, just like Subnautica.
Rather than being set in the ocean, though, the game puts players in a Norse-inspired world that allows them to build structures and fight mythical creatures.
Though it lacks some of the survival elements of Subnautica, it does allow players to build bases in a very similar way.
One of the other unique bits about Valheim is that it allows players to work together to survive.
Rather than being stranded alone on a water world, you can work with a team to build better structures and improve your chance of survival.
Though the game doesn’t feature the same kind of central mystery as Subnautica, it is nevertheless an excellent survival game.
5) Breathedge
In terms of aesthetics, Breathedge might be the game that’s the most similar to Subnautica. With a similar color scheme and a writing style that feels very similar to some of the Alterra datapad entries, this space-based game puts a premium on survival.
Players take on the role of a man that’s simply looking to escort a family member’s ashes to their final resting place.
When the spaceship on which you are riding is destroyed, you’ll have to use your wits and a number of increasingly weird tools in order to survive.
While Breathedge is ultimately a much sillier game than Subnautica, it does end up hitting several notes that are familiar to players of the latter game.
Not only must you manage issues like oxygen, thirst, and hunger, but you also have to deal with upgrading equipment and finding novel ways to make it around your environment.
Breathedge doesn’t have any base-building elements and its story is significantly less complex than that of Subnautica, but its sense of humor and excellent puzzles will keep your entertained for quite some time to come.
6) Raft
Raft takes one of the major hooks of Subnautica – being stranded in the water – and greatly shrinks the focus on the game.
Instead of allowing you to build bases and submarines, Raft sticks you on a single raft and tasks you with surviving a world that’s fallen apart.
While the game certainly has elements of base building and exploration, it also keeps players firmly connected to a single vehicle during the entirety of the game.
Raft is an interesting game that requires players to not just harvest resources from the sea, but to keep a raft afloat in a world that seems to want it destroyed.
This not only means managing your space so that you can keep yourself alive on the raft, but also learning how to improve the raft so that you can get to one of a handful of islands and get access to new resources.
The story in the game also unfolds in a way similar to how it unfolds in Subnautica, with bits and pieces of information being doled out to you through items that were left behind long ago.
7) Stranded Deep
Stranded Deep follows some of the same general beats as Raft, in that it once again features a character stranded in the ocean.
It separates itself from both Subnautica and Raft, however, by being almost entirely about survival. In fact, there’s very little story here beyond the need for the player to eventually make his or her way home – something that it shares, at least on the surface, with Subnautica.
Raft places a premium on resource gathering and survival. Players can build rafts and craft various tools that can help them get from island to island, with an eventual goal of making it out of the Pacific Ocean entirely.
Unlike Subnautica, the game takes place almost entirely out of water and there’s no overriding concerns beyond trying to stay alive.
If you’re looking for a game that takes the survival aspects of Subnautica and focuses on them beyond any sort of narrative, this might be the game for you.
8) Astroneer
Subnautica is a fairly intense game, but that doesn’t mean that every game in the survival genre needs to get a player’s pulse pounding.
If you’re looking for something that will require you to balance resource gathering and survival but that might play a bit more gently, you should check out Astroneer.
This space-based game sees players moving from planet to planet as they gather resources and build tools to help them explore.
One of the mechanics in Astroneer that feels a great deal like Subnautica is the importance of building oxygen lines.
As any player who has ever built tubing in Subnautica knows, having lines available can make it easier for you to explore without running out of air.
While a minor part of Subnautica, this is a central mechanic in Astroneer. Players also get the chance to build new tools and gather resources as they travel, features which should also be familiar to anyone who loved Subnautica.
9) The Long Dark
While many of the games in this genre take players to exotic locales, The Long Dark simply strands players in the frozen wilderness of Canada.
A game that’s as much about knowing when to take a risk as it is learning how to manage your resource levels, The Long Dark is an excellent game to try out once you’ve seen everything that there is to see in Subnautica.
The Long Dark has both story and survival modes. The Story mode allows players to trek through the wilderness in search of specific goals, but it’s the Survival mode that feels the most like Subnautica.
In this mode, players simply see how long they can last against the elements. Doing so requires knowing when to find shelter, when to use precious resources, and when to run from a fight.
If you’ve ever played Subnautica and wished for a slightly more difficult survival experience, this might the game for which you were waiting.
10) Grounded
While Subnautica gives you a vast ocean to explore, sometimes it can be fun to go smaller. Grounded shrinks players down to the size of a bug and places them in a suburban backyard.
While there, players get the chance to build their own bases and craft tools out of simple household items. They also get a chance to explore a mysterious world full of sci-fi inventions and hostile wildlife.
Though Grounded is a bit more kid-friendly than Subnautica, it is nevertheless a similar game.
While you’ll spend more time dealing with spiders than reapers here, you’ll still find yourself looking for new ways to survive in this open world.
Though the game is still growing at the moment, it’s a good place to explore if you are looking for something to do after you have finished both of the Subnautica games.
