Subnautica Concept Art: Lava Zone 2 - Subnautica
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Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
Subnautica Concept Art: Lava Zone 2 - Subnautica
Welcome back to the Subnautica blog – It is time for a special piece of Cory’s concept art, Lava Zone 2. Here it is accompanied by Simon’s latest addition to the Subnautica Soundtrack, Precipice: When ideas for Subnautica began percolating in Charlie’s head, a few principles came to the fore. One was that Subnautica would not be a game centered around combat, killing or violence. Instead, the game was to encourage exploration, care in interactions with the environment, and the passing of obstacles through other methods than the application of overwhelming force. The scene in Lava Zone 2 is therefore not one of combat. Though the creatures appear threatening, and the player in the bipedal suit appears well equipped to …
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Edit - The water looks very clear here, is there plans for these areas to have any kind of thick "smokey" look around the lava? I'm just imagining it being quite hard to see, with those creatures circling the player, coming in and out of your vision while you're on a thin ledge like in the concept...
Wouldn't it be more logical the other way around? Most creatures think of it as an act of aggression if you look directly into their eyes.
I love this idea. I was thinking of something similar (inspired by the evil hedges from The Shining), where the player must keep the creature in sight while they move. I think it could create really rich behaviors and some interesting dexterity feats without requiring bullets.
You have to have some kind of action in-game and it should be engaging or no one will buy it.
There's nothing I love more in a game than being truly scared of something in my environment. Being able to kill a threat with something in my arsenal just diminishes it in my mind, I stop respecting it. If it's impervious to anything I have, but I can still outsmart it through cleverness or resourcefulness, that's some quality gaming.
I saw something cool like this in Metro: Last Light. About ~2hours in maybe there is a section in some catacombs (I think they are called). And you have these horrible spider/scorpion type things which attack you but are covered in bulletproof armour. They live in the dark as they dont like the light, so as you go through this section you have to keep your flashlight charged and shine it at them when they attack you to fend them off.
Obviously in this case its still a combat encounter but I thought it was a really cool idea using lighting as a gameplay mechanic. Could always be something of a defense mechanism in the deep dark places without needing a gun :P
Yeah I thought about the same thing but more in line how the Librarians in Metro 2033 work. They are big, dangerous, strong and take more bullets and effort than worth it to kill them. But you don't need to fight them, because if you look them in the eyes and act correctly they won't attack you.
If they get nervous they will start making sounds and hit with their hands on the floor. If you don't back off slowly they will attack you and most likely kill you. However if you back off too fast it thinks it is strong enough to (yet again) kill you and will attack. If you attack, it will either charge towards you directly or jump of into to hiding to ambush you later. It will also go jump of to ambush you later if you hurt it enough after it charged you.
If you make it attack without attacking it (like turning your back towards) you can dodge its attacks long enough to try and start playing the staring game again. You can't do this if you attacked it and is less likely to want to play the staring game with you if it gets a successful hit.
After staring at it long enough without any conflict it will pretend to be uninterested to eat you and slowly walk away. From here it either...
A: Jumps through a hole to the floor above or under you to try and do an ambush on you later which you can prevent by trying to keep track on it.
B: Tries to make a surprise attack directly after turning it's back against you even if you look at it (Not sure if this is random or has anything to do on how well you acted against it previously).
C: Attacks you if it notices that you are looking somewhere else before it leaves the room.
However this section of the game is heavily scripted and i'm not sure if it's actually the same librarian that tries to ambush you later if you make it go away. And heavy scripting probably isn't an option in an open-world game.
Such a shame that most of the other creatures in the metro games just try to mindlessly rush your location. Would be cool if more of them had mechanics that allowed you to pass by them by using body language or something else.
I'm a positive that UWE can produce a creature behavior system that works just as well (maybe even better) for more creatures.