it pisses me off so entirely when people complain about not being able to stab and kill large creatures in subnautica 2.
you dont DESERVE to be able to kill things in this game. you dont deserve it!!! if your enjoyment of the game hinges on your ability to kill the aliens you were supposed to OBSERVE and RESEARCH in a game about respecting the environment, then you dont deserve the ability to kill them!!! i dont care!!! if you cant be trusted to make the right choice in the game, theyve taken away your choice. and thats actually decent game design! because it diverts your attention away from a random game mechanic and onto far more important things that the developers actually want you to focus on.
even then, subnautica 2 does let you kill things. it lets you eradicate an invasive species that is taking over and causing ecological stress. it lets you eat fish in order to survive. people argue for the sake of immersion, "if i were in a survival situation in real life id have use of a knife and i could stab things." but the truth is if YOU, the average modern person, were in a survival situation in real life and acting under duress, youd probably die of dehydration. you would not be fighting off bears, you would not be hunting hogs, you would die, because you wouldnt be able to find water. just because other survival games let you wrestle a bear does not mean that is an immersive or realistic quality, please dont tell me this is how you think a real life survival situation would work. most wolves wouldnt even consider attacking you in real life.
you should not be engaging with massive predators and fighting them to death with nothing but a knife in hand, you should be carefully evading them. do not fucking make me laugh with your bullshit alpha male fantasies. people who are into bushcraft and camping would laugh at you. real life survivalists would laugh at you. anyone who studies the environment would laugh at you. they would laugh at your need for 'immersion' because they dont go around hunting endangered animals and running headfirst into bears if they can help it. youre not feeling immersed, because you know nothing about the environment, and all you play is call of duty and csgo, so you view the animals in the game as 'enemies' when thats not what theyre supposed to be.
subnautica 2 has a different, more subtle immersion. and its felt by people who are into science, conservation, diving, etc. you can give the marrowbreach a whack on the nose to make it leave you alone, and it barely damages you, probably just curious about what you are and how you taste, or playing with you roughly. its a fucking shark, its meant to be like a shark, youre meant to be a diver politely pushing away a shark to get it to leave you alone. your reaction to a shark trying to nibble you shouldnt be to grab it and wrestle it and stab it into submission, thats a great way to get your arm broken or kill a beautiful animal for no reason.
we are also not in an average survival situation in this game. we have enough to thrive without the use of killing because we have modern technology on our side and help from the ecosystem itself, why on earth would we make the choice to purposefully attack a large animal? where we would struggle to find water, its easily accessible in this game. where you couldnt digest the fish before, the angel combs allow you to. you have enough food and resources. the environment is not really against you, the game is trying to train you to face your fears one step at a time. go a little bit deeper, get a little bit closer to the animals, stay a little longer, think a little harder. its scary at first, and then it becomes beautiful. you learn how to evade the marrowbreach, how close you can get to the collector leviathan without provoking it. you learn new recipes, you go deeper down and find entirely new ecosystems. please stop thinking like a soldier and start thinking like a scientist, think of what the game is trying to tell you.
