Games

Playing Subnautica 2 and it immediately recaptures the magic and mystery of the original. Below Zero faltered quite a bit trying to add above-ground content and going in a rather unsatisfying direction with the story (too direct, not enough mystery, AL-AN being in your head cut all the tension), though it was beautiful and added some excellent lore and quality of life improvements that have carried over to the new game.

What impresses me the most so far is the writing, suprisingly. The simple act of integrating respawning (reprinting!) into the actual lore and making it a big part of the story is a massive improvement over the bland handwave respawning in the first game, and the writers are actually grappling with the existential nightmare baggage that comes with it. They actually make use of all the Architect tech they reverse-engineered Below Zero and it paints a pretty bleak picture of the universe and your character's place in it. Humanity might be extinct from the Kharaa, which was not just a bacterium but an intelligent being that manipulates entire ecosystems to spread itself between worlds to the point that it might have wiped out every civilization that's ever reached the stars. Surprise! Subnauitica was actually a Natural Selection 2 prequel.

And holy fuck is the game tense. The only leviathan I've encountered so far is the one you've seen all over the place, the big squid. He grabs your Tadpole if you're in it and tosses you around a bit, but straight-up eats you if you're swimming. You have to dodge under cramped overhangs to keep away until it loses interest.

It's so fucking good.