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???? If there was only one thing I could tell you about Below Zero before you buy it, I would simply point at the Discussions in the Community Hub; the first thing you'll see there is an enormous thread called 'You ruined the game', which you shouldn't open due to the obvious spoilers galore that's inside. It's got way over a thousand comments now, and people keep bickering there every single day:

'Below Zero sucks! I hate it, it makes my blood boil!'
'No, ya dimbo, it's great! I loved every second of it!'
...ad infinitum.

Despite the fact that a full year has elapsed since the game's release, neither the defence nor the prosecution have been able to make their closing arguments, 'rest their cases' and just go home. The smouldering embers of this dumpster fire just refuse to die, and I believe you can already draw some important conclusions based on that fact alone. People feel strongly about this game and the franchise in general.

I am one of those who loved Below Zero despite its shortcomings, but I will make an effort to remain impartial and unbiased in this review and explain both sides of the story. If you don't like going in blind with your entertainment purchases, stay awhile and I promise you'll come out the other side much better equipped to make a well-informed decision.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2796283190
???? The most resounding complaint, the overarching theme of all disparaging comments is the fact that the main heroine... talks. The mute, expressionless dummy we controlled in the original installment is now replaced by Robin – a female researcher who is practically never at a loss for words. Some players attach significant importance to the atmosphere of utter loneliness and helplessness that was present in the previous game; for them, this atmosphere is Subnautica. If you share this point of view, you're in for a nasty surprise – not only does Robin talk, but she's also not the only human being around.

To be honest, I didn't mind the vocal protagonist and additional characters one bit – on the contrary, I enjoyed the unusual flavour it gave to already familiar game mechanics. It felt fresh and I'm glad the devs decided against doing more of the same and in favour of being bold and creative. The lonely and helpless feel of the first game was born from the absence of things – absence of ideas, absence of characters, absence of interactions; the product of natural limitations of a small studio, and barely the pinnacle of game design.

???? The voiced heroine is not the only groundbreaking change, however. Anyone who's played the first part remembers that there were some land sections – a couple of small islands, if you don't count the Aurora. In Below Zero, land sections make a return, but now they're beefed up on steroids and occupy nearly 50% of the entire map – but we're still playing Subnautica, right?..

When on land, your body temperature drops at an alarming rate; thankfully, there is a variety of ways to keep it at optimal levels – the one you'll be using most often is jumping back into the freezing arctic water.

Sure. Makes sense????

???? When not exploring snow-covered plains and mountain tops, you'll find that most ocean biomes are pretty crammed, with the majority of them being caves, ravines and twisting narrow passages of different kinds. I find that to be a pretty clever design choice; in the previous game, if you badly needed oxygen and safety, you could just... go up. Here, directly up oftentimes leads nowhere, and the feeling of claustrophobia suddenly locks you in its wet, sickening embrace – especially if you have 10 seconds of oxygen left. To compensate for that, there are now oxygen plants sprinkled here and there throughout the dark depths, and you'll be frantically looking for them, praying to see that welcoming green glow around the next bend. This adds a whole other layer of emotional intensity that the original simply didn't have.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2800073898
???? Many players complain that this iteration of the series is guilty of 'handholding' you and does so in an annoying, obtrusive way; how I wish that was true! From the very beginning, you can go pretty much anywhere, but the story in Below Zero is presented in such a way that there is only one 'correct' path you may take that will allow all the little bits and pieces of the main plot you gather along the way to make sense. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky and didn't do things the 'intended' way; very often me and my partner were scratching our heads, completely stumped as to what the heck we were supposed to do next, and we had no such issues with the first game. The writing is sometimes sloppy and at odds with the story of the original. All that is one of the two reasons I couldn't give Below Zero the ???? rating.

???? The second one is the omnipresence of bugs and glitches, especially if you're brave (or stupid) enough to build your base on land. Things will constantly break for no reason at all; floating staircases, disappearing vehicles, the whole shebang. This is nothing new, as the first Subnautica also had similar problems, but this time the issues are pretty glaring and I have no idea how the devs missed them.

???? On a more positive note, if there is truly something to pat Unknown Worlds Entertainment on the back about, that will be all the clever ideas they introduced in Below Zero; I couldn't help but say 'Oh, so now we have THIS!' nearly every time I sat down to play the game. One example of that would be the jukebox; you can now listen to music in your base and in your main vehicle as you explore the neverending cave systems, and every single song absolutely slaps. They tried to include as many genres as possible; there are beautiful, unexpectedly emotional songs that make exploration feel much more immersive than it was in the first game, and there is also... okay, sit down if you're standing – there is Subnautica rap. This stuff starts at unbearable levels of cheese and comes full circle to being simply genius. Never been a fan of rap music, but I appreciate the level of creativity that went into writing these lyrics. Overall, the presence of the jukebox spells death to the rather primitive (in my opinion) 'lonely and helpless' atmosphere and proclaims the beginning of a new, multi-layered kind of fun you've never felt in Subnautica before.

Oh, almost forgot – you can add your own songs, and it's really simple.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2802309020
???? All right – time to wrap this one up. For me, Below Zero was able to reignite the spark, returning the wonderful feeling of being lost in an unfamiliar world. I played the original for well over 100 hours, completed it several times with and without mods, and the excitement naturally dwindled; I knew what to expect, what to do, and where to go. Below Zero combined relative familiarity with core gameplay mechanics and a completely different environment; even though it made some mistakes along the way, it accomplished the main goal – allowing me to go on a brand new adventure once again, and for that I'm thankful.

???? P.S. Some particularly nasty individuals can't stop going on about this game being 'woke' because it's got a couple of gay characters and a black female as a protagonist; if you get your panties in a bunch because you see 'propaganda' in a game where someone's sexual orientation is casually mentioned once, then get on yer little soapbox and speak of your petty frustrations to the world – whatever, everyone is entitled to have an opinion. Just don't be surprised when we laugh at you.

Its a good game, but its overshadowed by the original

• The waters feel overall much more alive, fish AI has been improved, and the density of fish is higher. It's a lot more fun now to explore and interact with the little fish in the game. The predators' behavior is also improved to be a little more of a threat which is a good change over the previous title to keep the players feeling a sense of danger.
• The addition of freezing weather as another survival challenge is pretty cool. But unfortunately diving into the water warms you up, and there's not a lot of incentive to stay on the surface after exploring the few key locations. So the entire mechanic, and all its items to help you survive the harsh weather, feel a bit underwhelming.
• You can build bigger, nicer bases now, but seeing as the map is smaller with less to explore, there's no point to spend too much time on building a massive base (or multiple bases) in my opinion, unless it's only for the sake of it. I would use the real-life analogy of moving to a house with a much smaller living room (map to explore) but with a much bigger bathroom (bases you build).

• The protagonist has a personality and dialogue moments and the story is more engaging. However, the feeling is a little bit quirky/ cartoony with silly jokes and little to no serious emotions (which takes away from the tension of exploring a dangerous underwater world).
• You are no longer stranded in a vast open ocean, but rather you are in a body of water that is mostly surrounded by ice sheets, and you are by no means alone, the place feels more like an earth research site than a mysterious alien planet. There are no places with open-water, where you cannot see the seafloor or walls of rock around you (such as we had at the underwater islands in Subnautica 1). There is no extremely spooky dark cave system (such as we had when entering the blood kelp and getting really disoriented in the darkness, or even the spooky dark vibes of the jellyshroom cave and deep grand reef. All of the caves are really well lit and smaller in size. The land gameplay gets boring very quickly, it's mainly just ice sheets with some penguins and polar bear equivalents.
Overall, the map is smaller, less deep, less diverse, and less spooky. But still beautiful.
• Vehicles and handheld technology have been significantly downgraded. A lot of them cut out from the game. The new Seatruck feels clunky and has less available mods than even the seamoth from the previous title.
• The density of predators is much higher now. There are few areas where you can cruise around relaxed and admire the environment instead of rushing through to get away from threats. It's fun that you can kill them quickly but it still gets annoying. Two biomes that are taking up the middle of the map (which you keep having to cross) are absolutely infested with medium sized predators at all depths (think crag field but with bonesharks also at the water surface level), and you'll get real tired of crossing the middle of the map. There is no tension buildup over exploring a distant dangerous biome, because the most dangerous biomes are right outside the safe starting area (with the exception of the end game biome).

--- 8.5/10 ---

~ PLAYTIME HOURS ~

~ PRICE ~

~ GRAPHICS ~

~ AUDIO / SOUNDTACK ~

~ DIFFICULTY ~

~ GRIND ~

~ GLITCHES / BUGS ~

Gameplay

Characters

The Setting / Maps

The Creatures

Sound & Music

Conclusion