Section 3: Manipulation of Player Agency
Subnautica and Player Agency: Threat and Challenge
The previous article in this series concluded the exploration of visual design, sound design and behavioural design and how it creates atmosphere in Subnautica. This article, and the rest of the series, will explore the careful manipulation of player agency in Subnautica, first through how threat and difficulty are managed in Subnautica.
As I have mentioned, player agency is a very important consideration of any video game: some argue it is the most important consideration, as it is agency that makes video games unique among media. The amount of control and influence you have as the player in the narrative, story and world of the game you play, and how this agency is expressed, will have a massive impact on your experience with the game. Because of how important this is, I think the use and manipulation of player agency is a crucial aspect of what makes Subnautica effective as a horror experience. The game naturally has a lot of agency: as a character who is totally alone on an alien planet, you essentially have free reign. You can go where you like, when you like, with almost no restrictions across the entire map.
There are two key limiting factors that might actually hinder a player: your oxygen meter and the threat posed by creatures in the game. If we examine both of these elements, though, we realise that the game does not pose a serious challenge or restriction in either aspect. While running out of oxygen when exploring certainly is possible, after you get your first submarine you have a constant, portable stream of oxygen (sci-fi wizardry means that your submarine has an infinite oxygen supply, that can always replenish your own when you enter it), making it really quite difficult. As for the creatures you face, most notably leviathans, they are certainly dangerous – the larger monsters can often swallow you whole if they get close enough – but in actuality they are not extremely threatening hunters. Often leviathans up close will be remarkably incompetent, having trouble staying locked onto the player, and surprisingly easy to dodge out of the way when a player puts their mind to it.
Neither of the most direct threats the players face, then, are really a huge threat. Rather, it is careful design that makes the player anticipate the threat they might face from them that makes them scary. In the case of breathing, despite, again, running out of breath rarely being a true threat, the game gives you frequent reminders that your oxygen is running out: at the halfway point, then at thirty seconds, and finally at ten seconds, where the PDA message is simply ‘Oxygen!’
A screenshot of a PDA oxygen warning – perhaps a little pointless at this depth!
These serve as useful reminders for the player, yes, but they also importantly keep the fact that oxygen is running out a constant thought in the back of the player’s mind. You never forget how limited your supply is, and particularly as you explore deeper and more ambitiously, being 400 meters below the surface with ten seconds of oxygen left is always nerve-wracking, even when you aren’t far from your sub.
What is rather brilliant about this is that the supply is even more forgiving than what is indicated: when the player actually runs out of oxygen: that is, their oxygen meter genuinely reaches 0, the player does not die. In fact, you can still swim and survive for about eight seconds before the game actually kills you. This ekes out the tension of the final dash for oxygen: rather than simply dying, you see your counter hit 0, and over the next four seconds can only desperately swim as your screen begins to go black and your character slowly suffocates. But even after the screen is completely black, you still have 4 seconds to keep moving. The game gives you every opportunity possible to survive the experience, but makes it a truly terrifying one by having such a slow, lethargic death.
In both of these core threats in the game – the vast majority of your deaths will be from leviathan attacks or running out of oxygen – the threat itself is not actually much of a gameplay challenge. Leviathans are easy to avoid and oxygen is very forgiving, even if you calculate wrong and are cutting it close to zero on your way back, but their role is not to have a significant gameplay challenge: their role is to contribute to the horror atmosphere of the game. They do not need to be a genuine threat, all they need to do is create the anticipation of threat: they make the player imagine what the fearful experience would be like, they immerse the player through creating an expectation of something terrible, and this is what makes the game so marvellously designed as a horror experience, and so much more subtle than a regular game of jumpscares and cheap one-shot-kill monsters. Manipulation of player agency is therefore a core part of Subnautica’s game design: you might face few genuine risks of running out of oxygen, but you will still always be extra careful to not stray too far from your submarine. You might not actually be that threatened by the presence of a leviathan in the area: indeed, veteran players who have gotten over the scare tactics of Reapers will often decide to hitch rides on them with Subnautica’s ‘PRAWN’ mech suit.
A screenshot of an experienced player getting up close and personal with a Reaper.
But, for people who haven’t realised that they aren’t as dangerous as they seem (and, for people like me, who are well aware of it, but are shaken to their core when they see one regardless), their experience of exploring areas like the Dunes or the Mountains is far from free: it is a constant experience of tracking round the reaper’s hunting grounds, navigating caves to avoid open space, checking behind you to make sure one isn’t stalking through the water. For a game with such a huge level of theoretical freedom, much of the playable map doesn’t feel so accessible, and is both a challenge and a fearful experience to go through.
This article has explored the careful design of threat and challenge throughout Subnautica, and how it successfully manipulates player agency to create fear and suspense throughout Subnautica.
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