Unimplemented stuff now all going to be DLC?

SilkSpider

Transfuser/DNA = DLC

Arctic/lilypad islands/twisty bridges = DLC

pretty much all other cool unimplemented stuff that I've been dying to see since very early access = DLC

I kept hearing stuff would continue to be added "post release/post 1.0/whatever"... now basically the main game is being dropped like a hot potato and you're not going to add anything else to it? All the cool stuff that was supposed to be in the original is now all going to be paid DLC? That's disappointing.

Well, at least there's cuddlefish. I guess.

HoodedDeath

I'd guess the red and white alien tablets are also going to be part of below zero as well, if they even get used

AnomalyDetected

Did somebody call it a DLC?

RowletAlex

Technically, it’s not DLC. It’s a separate game entirely, not an add-on to the first. While you should play the base game for Subnautica for context, you don’t have to to play Below Zero.

The idea for a DLC has been around for a while, and we’ve known for a long time that we wouldn’t get any more content post-release. That was never promised. It’s not being suddenly dropped like a hot potato, they’re putting that potato on a plate for you and going back to make one with cheese. The only thing we won’t ever get to use at all is a cyclops dock, which is admittedly disappointing but not that big a deal.

Eventually the devs concluded the scope of what they wanted to do was too big so they just made it separate. This was long before anything was announced, however. UWE is far from greedy companies like Electronic Arts, who lock necessary content behind DLC packs. The Subnautica devs aren’t locking any necessary content behind a DLC. Originally we’d just get a couple new blueprints and a tiny addition to the base map, but they’re going the extra few miles and making us an entire new game.

Also, I make no promises but in a community suggested ideas thread, someone suggested backwards compatibility with the base game (so base modules like the glass roof and certain other things will be useable in both) and the devs acknowledged it and put it in a feature ideas google doc, but that doc is now outdated so we don’t know if it will actually happen. It does prove they’ve at least considered it though.

Halios

SilkSpider wrote: »

All the cool stuff that was supposed to be in the original is now all going to be paid DLC?

Subnautica was an early access game and in the interest of transparency and the dev team being able to get feedback they shared some ideas with us which for various reasons didn't make it into the release version.

Those things you're upset about were not promised for the original game so no they weren't "supposed" to be in it.

Obraxis

Just clearing up some information here. Some things concepted out for Subnautica just didn't work out, for many different reasons; Time, gameplay, thematically or wouldn't fit correctly in the world we'd built over many years. They were not 'cut' so we could put them in any kind of DLC or separate game.

When we started to work on Below Zero, we looked to see if we could work a few of our cool original Subnautica ideas into Below Zero, or if they would work at all. Not everything concepted out for Subnautica is going in Below Zero, but we're seeing what we can put in that makes sense. Below Zero will have a large amount of original content, using Subnautica as an skeleton.