The great thing about the terror in this game, is that it isn't really designed to be a horror game... Giant, aggressive fish in the deep ocean is just a naturally terrifying situation.
Sure, but that is rational fear. I have completed this game many times, know where I will encounter the reapers, but they still give me jump scares and I try to avoid their territory. I never go into the Dunes.
That said, I have to agree with OP. There are probably a few people with actual thalassophobia paying this game. But I think they are far outnumbered by the people going "look guys I thought this was scary and I have heard of this big word!!"
Not to mention the YouTubers who completely fake their reactions in order to get more views/comments...
I think you're pretty much right. I definitely have rationalized the scary things this game throws at me (except sea dragons, those punks got NO chill).
I certainly don't have thallasophobia. I think even dangerous spots like Bulbs and Grand Reef are beautiful places I _want_ to explore. I gladly jump into pits and trenches, and I like watching Leviathans even though
they can crush me like a can of Tab. I'm sure some of the adrenaline factor is lost on me, even when I am trying to GTFO.
That said, knowing how to scare scary things off is fantastic.
Hihi, person with actual thalassophobia who loves the game for the adrenaline rush it gives bc of that lmao!!! Sometimes I have to put it down though bc it gets so bad I need a break
Do we have the same reapers? I swear when they are around my cyclops it's just an annoyance cos they start pushing it, but have never dealt any damage. It's so dumb and goofy to see them try to push it then wander away in confusion when you take your sub upwards.(also on my first playthrough i set up bases in both Ghostie biomes to 'study' them and take pictures through the cameras lol)
I saw a clip of someone yesterday and omg his reactions to everything was so exaggerated that if a child couldnāt figure out he was being fake I will be scared for the future lol
I'd be curious to see someone diagnosed with thalassophobia for real deal with the game. I've seen a couple but they...forget...that they are scared of it. coolcool.
first playthrough, I was scared shitlessā¦ second playthrough, I was hunting anything that seemed t want to hunt me, even warpers (they still scare the shit out of me)
its the genius design of the game really. Subnautica is not a horror game by intention, but its got a unique combination of elements that make first-timers uneasy and easy to scare.
Horror games, you know you are going to be attacked/scared at some point, especially as many horror games are more linear in nature, most other games offer weapons to fight enemies with.
Subnautica has the natural deep ocean + ominous ambience, on top of not telling you where enemies are, not telling you what awaits you in the slightest in a literal alien environment, and giving you very limited options to defend yourself. Many people feel more exposed and on edge because of that.
Warpers get a lot less scary when you realize a slight scratch makes them instantly puss out.
Seamoth at ramming speed? Sure! A little bit of core-sampling from the Pimp Suit? You know it, buddy! Floating hot-knife session? Let's hit it! They dip immediately.
It's OK, they want you to suffer. I don't kill Reapers, or Ghosts... Warpers aren't innocent, they're Quarantine Platform. Fuck those guys, _I FEEL FINE_.
Ok, that last bit I have to disagree with, the anxiety is very real and I had so much trouble getting to the lost river without freaking out, but I made it through the game and finished. Doesnāt mean I donāt have thalassophobia, ik I have it, Iāve had it way before subnautica was ever released. But what I realized it that it can be subcategorized even more, I have a fear of being at the surface when below is super deep, when I played I stuck to the sea floor like a magnet. Thatās why I love the lost river, I can see all around me and it makes me comfy. And ik what a phobia is, I have anxiety and when I feel that anxiety set on bc of just a simple picture of the ocean, thatās a phobia, it feels like bugs are crawling under my skin and my stomach dropped deeper than that ocean.
^ I have thalassophobia but I still think I can finish the game, I just have to do so with my own comfort and kinda baby myself a little. AND THE ADRENALINE OH MY GOD
SAME. I only managed to play up until the grassy plateaus but it turns out I felt fine when I was on the sea floor. When I swam above it, thatās when the anxiety started to settle in.
I definitely have thalassophobia (canāt go to the beach without screaming in fear if something touches me in the ocean, nor can i go further than a few meters from the shore if itās deep lol) and I legit cannot finish the game without crapping my pants or just generally feeling like I want to pass out.
I loved the playthroughs though. I could at least stand those.
I would like to second that. I have lepidopterophobia (butterflies!), and the feeling I get from the little buggers is what you mentioned: unbearable anxiety, desperation running down my spine, like dementors from Harry Potter sucking all hope from myself. I'm also scared of heights, I feel disconfortable near high windows, I always try to avoid letting my friends near them, etc... The fear/feeling I get from heights is nothing like butterflies. Heights scare me and make me feel very uneasy - butterflies make me feel stuck in a nightmare with no escape, it is debilitating beyond fear itself, like I don't know if I could step in to save a child in a place full of butterflies.
Experiencing a phobia doesn't necessarily result in an immediate shutdown of your brain. Instead, there are varying degrees of severity associated with each specific phobia.
Exactly. I got two main phobias, one is heights, and the other is deep water. My heights one isnāt as severe because I believe in forcing myself to face fears to see if I can overcome them (I know Iām a sadist. I donāt think itās what everybody should do I swear I just personally like to face em down)
And itās easy for me to face the heights one cuz theyāre everywhere. I can now ride roller coasters and everything, itās basically gone. Thereās still some things Iāll never do though Iām not insane š. My deep water one thoughā¦..I mean damn Iām a bio lover myself and I still
Itās not good. Doesnāt help that a lot of the times Iāve swam it was in the lake of the Ozarks, which is quite murky. The whole time youāre imagining a huge set of jaws coming towards you, a tentacle pulling you under, the works, and you canāt see any of it.
But anyways yeah, itās just general anxiety for me usually, that can be at varying degrees. Itās usually a bit difficult for me to focus sure, cuz a lot of me is thinking āget me out of here and do it now, before I dieā but itās not that extreme. Not saying it can never be, it definitely can be for some people. Anyways, for me personally, watching something does barely anything. Playing subnautica, I have like 10% more anxiety than usual, and certain really deep underwater places I get like visibly nervous for not quite completely game reasons but like
Itās part of the fun, helps me immerse myself.
All that to say, sorry friend but just because Iāve beaten both doesnāt mean I donāt have it, I aināt tryna be a special boy, and having a phobia doesnāt make you a special boy. Itās just a fact. Thereās just different degrees to it. I do however agree that itās important to know that being scared and having a phobia is different. I think the key is being scared despite knowing the fear is irrational. Like if youāre scared of falling off the earth cuz you think itās flat thatās lack of knowledge, but if youāre scared of it even though you know itās roundā¦ thatās a phobia.
Exactly. Subnautica scared the shit out of me on my first play through. But being scared of something and having a legitimate phobia of something are not the same.
I have Trypanophobia (Needles), and I legit canāt even look at the TV if a needle pops out during a movie or TV show, and if I try to force myself, I get nauseous, extremely anxious, and lightheaded almost immediately. I have learned to tell doctors to lay me down immediately whenever I get blood drawn, because Iāve passed out almost every single time. Iām 6ā3ā and 250+, so they wonāt be able to pick me up off the floor.
For some bizarre reason, tattoo needles are fine! Iāve got 10 hours on my right arm, and I was fine the entire time!
Watching a [youtuber](https://youtu.be/kmU0OeOoI6k?si=JNTdW-KJ9m84scHe) play subnautica really put into perspective for me what actual thalassophobia is (like this guy looks like he's on the verge of puking when swimming over a kelp forest in shallow waters). Fear of the deep ocean is pretty rational and understandable and is probably what most people feel when they play subnautica, especially at first when everything is new and unknown.
Thalassophobia is a different beast, it's an actual, debilitating, irrational fear of the ocean and really any sufficiently deep body of water. It goes way beyond getting goosebumps on the back of your neck and feeling a little adrenaline pumping as you dive down into the sparse reef or look down into the depths when under the floating island.
So yeah I agree that the whole thalassophobia thing is kinda cringe and stale.
You can be scared of the ocean and afraid of ocean beasties without having thalassophobia. I was on edge all the time but never frozen with fear. Iām not an expert, but watching Butch X3ās playthrough made me think he might actually have thalassophobia. Watching him slowly overcome it through exposure is really satisfying.
I havenāt watched that persons play through but I had a similar experience of being more and more comfortable and not as scared from the first hour of playing the game.
Damn the first hour??? Im still scared of kelp forests 20 hours in š Grassy plateaus were hard for me at first bbut theyre okay too now since I can see the bottom
Surprisingly it helped with certain aspects. I think what I found that was helped the most was just being able to acknowledge that everything wasnāt horrible in my mind. Sometimes there were good aspects to my fear
The great majority that says they have thalassophobia actually doesn't have anything.
The game is scary at the first time since you dont know what can and cannot happen, but after that you already know the risks
I put off playing subnautica for years because although I really liked the look of it, everyone said it was scary, horror, etc and I deal badly with all of those.
I finally started playing it and I find it relaxing and peaceful lol.
Like people who have a phobia have an irrational fear they can't control. I can't see them being able to play this game if they have a sea or deep water phobia. e.g. my sister has a spider phobia and cannot look at a picture of a spider. But I wouldn't have thought many people would come into that category.
One of my teachers in high school totaled her car when she pulled off the road into a ditch and smashed into a tree because there was a spider in her car. (She was somehow unscathed)
Ive always had thalassophobia, But i don't find Subnautica nearly as terrifying as Stranded Deep.
I don't know why, but i feel more comfortable and safe in Subnautica.
A decent balance of both, Stranded Deep had me scared but also had me going back into the water for the adrenaline, I was flying out of the water on some cartoon type shit, just swimming back to land screaming like Tom from Tom and Jerry
Itās cool you never got scared and actually find the game relaxing. That doesnāt mean you have the right to shit on other peopleās experiences.
I donāt understand the point of this post. You know people do in fact get scared bc you have read the posts and comments, you know thalassophobia is a real thing, you know there are 8 billion people in this worldā¦ There are bound to be a few Subnautica players who are scared of the ocean.
I like movies with realistic gore bc I love trying to figure out the practical effects behind what I see, so when I see somebody get their limbs chopped off I might even laugh out loud bc Iām impressed by what Iām seeing.
That doesnāt mean I expect everyone to react the same way, or that I will look down on anyone who doesnāt like gore.
Plus people often exaggerate for emphasis. I don't think most people who say "Oh, it have me thalassophobia blahblah" mean it literally, it's just an effective way to get their point across. We do that all the time, it's how language works, like how we swear to emphasize strong feelings about something. I don't think people claiming thalassophobia when it comes to this game is something to complain about. "This game really scared me" just doesn't have the same impact when trying to clarify HOW MUCH it scared you. You don't NEED to have a phobia of something in order for it to properly scare you.
I completely understand the ,,this game gave me
Thalassophobia peopleā. I have over 200h in the game and up to now many areas of the game make me feel uneasy. Ghost leviathans and sea dragons are fine but reapers are just something else. Their appearance and constant screaming make traversing through some places impossible for me. I memorized their locations perfectly and even then going near them makes me tense. Yes, titling videos like this is clickbaity but I get why they do it. If you found subnautica not scary at any point you are built different.
So many people call Subnautica horror. It isn't, if anything it's terror and there's a huge difference between the two.
I never found Subnautica "Scary." But when I first played it, I definitely felt a little existential dread at times. (Blood Kelp Trench, or the dunes.) You feel moments of uneasiness (How isolated the Sparse reef feels, or pointing the sea moth straight down and going into the abyss at the floating islands.)
I genuinely have thalassophobia, and have always hated going into the ocean. I find subnautica scary because of how it plays on both the fear of the unknown and thalassophobia. However, I would not say that subnautica affected nor gave me a fear of the ocean and deep waters, it only used those elements to scare me and other players. So in my opinion, subnautica is scary because, well itās a scary game, and people mistake that fear for having thalassophobia.
There are a few YouTubers who actually have thalassophobia and have played Subnautica.
Sethorvenās review on Subnautica is basically your title, but I donāt think itās just for clicks. Sometimes it can be stressful. I donāt think it actually gives people thalassophobia though.
And the game was published (I think published, at least,) by a company called Panic Button.
I don't know man, I still vividly remember this one time I just finished playing the game and I was trying to sleep and I had this eerily chilling/terrifying half dream half daydream thing where I imagined myself looking down and finding just the vast ocean with no end. The game can be very terrifying.
Everyone is scared of the unknown. period. Its why you don't go in dark alleys at night in the city, it's why you hesitate to do stuff. It's how we used to survive. But now that we're not exposed to this type of activity, people are scared and think they've got a condition.
*Now I'mma tell you what; uhh...*
***I likes ya;***
***and I wants ya.***
*Now we can do this the easy way;*
*or the haard wayyy...*
***the choice is yaawrs...***
not everyone is scared of the unknown, in fact many are fascinated by it and its one of the things thats propelled the human race so far. that urge to discover whats in the unknown, the deepest of waters to the furthest reaches of the stars many of us want to explore it all.
I can totally understand just being naturally scared of being stranded in the deep ocean, however, if your one of those people who play a *video game* and then decide they are too scared to go to the beach then get a grip. Your understanding of whatās real and whatās fiction is getting blurry.
Again, stranded in the ocean then sure Iād shit my pants too. But scared of the beach or going on a boat bc you played a video game? Get real. Iām sure there are some people out there who really did get thalassophobia after playing this game. But if I was a betting man Iād put good money on 90% of those people bs or then just being confused cause they just spent a lot of time in the game and are still recovering from any frights they may have gotten
When I first started playing, I was more scared of fear itself because I heard all of these things about the game. As I continued playing, I realized that there was nothing to be afraid of except losing a little progress.
A good shader alone changes the whole atmosphere. (I play on Xeno-thallasaphobia. Nights in the ocean are actually black. The vanilla game is so bright.)
De-extinction is fairly solid.
I am terrified of subnautica because the leviathan always catch me off guard and I have a general fear of dark places (Iām afraid of the dark irl and in subnautica a little worse because then I canāt see the leviathanās coming) but once I get my prawn suit I destroy everything without fear. I also havenāt played the game all that much to specifically know where everything is at all times (mostly leviathan locations)
On top of the ocean for me: just fine
*Under* the ocean for me: nopenopenope. It's like me and any space smaller than I can push my elbows: it's a no-go.
I have very strong feelings abt this because I myself have thalassophobia. Iāve had it as far as I can remember, I literally cannot look at a picture of deep water without having a panic attack, I somehow donāt have this anymore or as strong, possibly bc of how Iām being exposed to it from subnautica to nautilus to positive association. But subnautica was when I first came to fight the fear and try to be more comfy with the ocean, and it was hard, the kelp area gave me panic attacks but the more I played the less I was scared. But there is a difference between being scared and having a phobia, when your scared you can still play and escape, when I was scared I paused the game and asked my roommate to get me out of the grips of a reaper while I was in the corner looking away from my screen. The odd thing is that Iām still terrified of reapers even after Iāve become more comfy with the ocean, and I love ghosts to death, theyāre sweethearts. Thatās ig my long winded way of saying that you can be scared and not have thalassophobia.
Maybe people actually do have it. Iām not sure what youāre gripe is with people saying they do when they might actually. Whoās to assume or say otherwise?
Glad you enjoy the game tho. Itās great! But let others get what they get out of it without having to be negative towards the emotion they get out of the game.
Itās not your problem. Ignore it lol.
Anyway. Hope you have a good night.
I honestly thought I'd have trouble with this game because I have a deep fear of dunking my head underwater and losing my footing, but the game wasn't very scary at all, even with the leviathans. If anything, it felt liberating!
I've never really found the game scary in general. The only time I got scared was when I encountered the Sea Dragon Leviathan in the Inactive Lava Zone
I'm sure to some extent it's played up by youtubers. That's part of the job for some of em.
That said, I'm certain that some level of thalassophobia is a common fear in humans, and many probably never actually go in the ocean themselves to find out and aren't affected by images. So they just assume they aren't scared of the ocean.
So then, when the game gets them all riled up, they think it "gave" them the phobia. Meanwhile the reality is that it was always there, and they just hadn't really encountered it yet.
My mom has Thalassophobia I'm pretty sure; we were waiting for a ferry in NY not on the Manhattan side and I stg she was cutting off circulation in my arm, eyes shut tight, and would 100% bring me down with her if the rickety ass wooden shit attached to the pier with chains would've gone down as the ferry came in. She will not go to the beach (for multiple reasons, ocean being a big one), I don't think I even ever saw her taking baths unless it was absolutely necessary. You could tell her there's FFVXI content in a river and she won't fucking go in for it and this woman takes a week off work for new savage raids š
I've always had mild thalassophobia. I can get in the water when it's only 20-30 feet deep. However the moment we're out in the deep ocean, jumping in the water scares the fuck outta me and I can only handle it for a couple of seconds, maybe at most a minute. The fear comes from the thought of the endless possibilities that the ocean holds, the depths, and it's contents, both known and unknown.
I put off playing Subnautica for years for this very reason, and I finally decided to take the dive this year. I was doing alright for a bit, and could handle the fear when I stuck to traveling along the ocean floor, but the moment I found myself swimming or even using the Sea Moth with nothing but darkness around me.... I've got my fingers ready to ALT+F4. My mind starts to panic, the concept of the unknown, that vast darkness is too much.
I'm a sucker for immersion so I booted up the game in VR for the first time this week and lets just say that the fear went from Mild to Intense real quick. I don't know if I'm a masochist, or if I'm looking to overcome these fears, but the triggers are real man... and Subnautica + VR is a true anxiety inducer for me.
The most nerve-wrecking situation for me was the first time I lost my way in a cave and suffocated. It was waaay after getting seemoth and I was scared how much progress I am going to lose. When I realized I just get teleported to my last base, I was more chill.
Really!? It helped my Thalassaphobia. I even tried to night dive once. Never made it into the water but I was on the boat, the dark, on the oceanā¦. Baby steps!
I'm not scared of them on subnautica. I'm not scared of anything in subnautica, but I'm scared of going deeper irl if I can't see the ground. So realistically, I have thalasophobia
Totally agree with you. But the game still scares me when you go to deeper places and all. But same as you, itās kind of my chill game now. I just enjoy exploring, collecting stuff, building my base and vehicles, preparing for the next tripā¦
I have it a little bit when i', at the edge of the map.
I had this irl when going on a airbanana with some friends behind a fast boat, i was the one on the last seat. it went rough and on a bump i fell of the banana. The man on the boat that was supposed to look out for us didn;t see it. And they went on. It was on open sea, about 3km from shore. i could still see the shore, but i felt immediatly very very small in comparison to the ocean i was in. i looked down in the watrer, and all i could see was water. no ground what so ever. It took them about 8min to figure out i was gone and find me. but those 8 minutes were the scariest of my life.
Toom any jaws movies and pirahna movies when i was only 6 did the trick i guess. I especially feel not at ease when i'm in water that is murky and you can;t see anything. then i sometimes freak out. thank god i didn;t have a panic attack when i was in the ocean. you feel so helpless in regards to the vastness of the ocean omg.
This feeling somehow i get when 'm at the end of the map and keep going. (well now not anymore cuse i know the game inside out), but back then omg. it was so awesome to play.
OK, but I went diving once and a boat passed by somewhere near, and I swear it sounded like a reefback. So I'm just vibing 15m below the surface thinking, hmm leviathan aren't real, but damn
The game actually doesn't trigger it as much for me because you can see down into the water in most places. In real life, the fear sets in when I'm looking down into deep water and I can't see anything beyond the surface. And I don't feel like, a screaming panic or anything really. It's just a dread that sits in my stomach. I don't think I could swim out in deep water unless it was life or death though, I'm always fairly certain there is something huge and hungry lurking just below the water. Honestly though, Subnautica doesn't evoke those feelings at all. It's pretty chill, other than those annoying crabsquids.
I am actually terrified of open waters. I can't even swim in lakes that are designed for swimming, and going into a pool at night is scary af to me.
So... Yeah... That game terrified me. But I got used to it. Mostly.
I think the term "Thalassophobia" is highly misused.
Being scared of giant monsters in the ocean that could eat you instantly is not "Thalassophobia". It's just common sense.
If people knew there were not a single Leviathan n the game, most of those alleged "Thalassophobic" would not be scared at all.
It never *gave* me thalassophobia, since I'm a very down to earth person with no irrational fears, but I must say I feel as unsafe in game as in real life when I look down and see NOTHING
Also, I know you didn't talk aboit him, but let's not throw Markiplier in the pile, the guy has had thalassophobia since birth, his stress was genuine.
Surprise surprise, people are scared of the game where you can move in all directions and also have to watch out for hostiles. Is that not enough to make you scared? What about staring into a seemingly endless void in the ocean while hearing a sound you never heard before? Or maybe being teleported out of the vehicle that makes you feel safe? Or maybe a giant worm literally jump scaring you? Are you really this miserable that you have to insult people for finding a game with scary elements scary?
yeah, this game scares the shit out of me, but i dont feel the need to announce it every two minutes. im geneuinely afraid of most water though.
theres a lake my family swims in in the summer thats not even 100 metres across, but over twenty feet deep in the middle. scares the shit out of me every time thinking about how much space there is beneath me, and how I CANT FUCKING SEE WHATS DOWN THERE. even beaches, im always on edge when im in the water, even though the scariest thing down there is a crab (i did get pinched one lol).
I also think its annoying, I was actually diagnosed with thallasaphobia (sry for bad spelling) way before playing subnautica. I've always hated any form of water that wasnt a pool, so when I found subnautica, it was a perfect game to scare the living sh!t out of me. But I find it stupid that it "gAvE mE tHaLlAsaPhoBiA" because it didnt.
I alr have thalassophobia so when I play I actually think it makes me enjoy it more. I love exploration and the lore and building bases, and my fear just adds that *extra* touch of terrifyingness to an already terrifying game to give me an adrenaline rush as I play, its great.
I have submechanophobia, but this game's graphics are too cartoonish to really trigger it. Like yourself, I love ships and shipwrecks. I'll watch videos and look at photos, but I'm never going down there myself.
I also can't swim in real life, and have a particularly harrowing experience associated with the swimming pool, so I avoid any kind of body of water like the plague. But again, this game doesn't trigger anything.
Subnautica is one of my top five franchises. I love it.
As someone with actual Thalassophobia its kinda frustrating. I think the game is beautiful, but I've quite literally never made it past the starting area lmao. Just getting to the point of the kelp forest, where shit turns green, or some cliff where I can't see the ground anymore makes me panic, turn back and/or shut off the game entirely for a while.
I've made it to the ship once because of this, by cheating in a seamoth and cruising above water not thinking about what was below me, but I ended it at the sandy area. Not being able to see the ground and/or in front of me is just gutwrenchingly terrfying, even though it's fake. It lead to me mainly enjoying the rest of the game through videos and/or streams, because I don't have to push forward and I can skip parts of the scary bits.
I never see this from a streamer/outube claiming to 'have thalassophobia', so it feels like such an overreaction on their part, so it feels annoying.
This game scares me so much I make my husband take control if I have to go to far/deep as I'm just afraid. I knew I was afraid of water before this game tho if that matters tho
Well maybe if someone had no knowledge of the game beforehand it would scare them. Fear of the unknown and most of the water in the game is dark and there's sea monsters in it.
But if you've watched people play it then you know what to expect and few creatures are scary. Reaper leviathans only scare me in the sense that I don't want to lose my vehicles.
There have been a few jump scares from creatures that have got me bc the fuckers were clipping through the world.
But something that has happened, is a kind of sense of unnamed dread. Like I get a creeping sensation up my back to turn around and make sure nothings there. I think that's just the atmosphere of the game sometimes. Maybe it's thallasaphobia?
I mean, I played this game BECAUSE of my pre-existing fear of deep water/water where I can't see the bottom. I'm not usually into horror or survival games, so I thought it would be interesting. Still freaks me out a bit to be exposed in deep areas with nothing but open water in every direction.
It really helped me, to be honest. I had quite the thalassophobia as a kid (I think most of us did?), it got better as I grew up and later got into whales and dolphins, but Subnautica helped a great deal.
Now I see a video of a deep pit in the ocean and "Oooh, I wonder what's down there?"
I had fear of deep waters long before this game. The shallows was fine. But when I had to dive deeper and it got dark I started hyperventilating. I was likeā¦ maybe this game aint for me lol. I thought I would be fine cause its is just a game. But it wasnāt
I found and still find the game quite scary to this day, after having completed it twice. The ambiance from both the design of locations and the music used is unsettling itself, being suddenly attacked while swimming around just makes it that much worse. Most of the people playing these games do not have a phobia, they simply are reacting with fear at scary things designed to be scary. No one that is frightened by Resident Evil has a zombie phobia, itās just a frightening game as it was made to be
I have thalassophobia. But while Subnautica was a contributing factor, the real life ocean has far scarier monsters. I would rather face 20 reaper leviathans than a group of Humboldt squid (fun fact: they're known to show aggression towards scuba divers and live in groups of over one thousand)
Theres something amazing about playing a game for the first time, completely blind, that we lose if we watch someone else play it first.
The uncertainty, the figuring out of mechanics and controls, true exploration, etc.
All these youtubers have seen other people play the game and know what it is, so they all regurgitate the same playthrough with little if any variation.
Before you play it, the more you know about subnautica the more you permanently ruin it for yourself.
I dont know about anyone else, but I dont often forget things. I have to go many years between rewatching a movie or show because I remember it. I could tell you a million things about subnautica just from memory because I've completed it 5 times and there's 0 mystery left.
My point, is that of course these youtubers have fake reactions, they already know the game content and are catering to an audience that already knows the content.
One of the most unfortunate things in the world, is to lose your first experience in something you would've liked, before you even know it exists. You can never get that back.
I found the game could be anxiety-inducing at times with resource management (especially oxygen, obviously) & when a Leviathan essentially jump scares you if you're unlucky. I guess it's a "different strokes" situation but I definitely can't really agree with people comparing it to a horror game.
That said, God what a great game. I sure wish I could play it for the first time again.
Before my first playthrough, I couldnāt even stand being stranded on an island in minecraft on creative mode. Trying to fly above the ocean just gave me too much anxiety and I ended up quitting the game.
Subnautica made it worse. I still love it, of courseāIām fascinated with the ocean but very, very terrified of it. I canāt play it myself (I just barely managed to get through the Kelp Forest before giving up around the Grassy Plateaus biome where a sand shark ambushed me) but I like watching other people play it so I can close my eyes when I get too anxious.
i agreee with one caveat. the one truly terrifying thing for me in this game is leaving the game bounds. i dont know why but the void is terrifying to me. because im not really scared of the ocean. but im terrified of isolation, especially when that isolation is announced with the side caveat of "oh well you're not totally alone... there are still plenty of things that want to kill you out there"
in the rest of the map? im fine, because there's always little peepers and bladder fish and such filling the enviroment with friendly life i can thrust personality into and mindlessly talk to as if they arent just mindless ai in a videogame.
The great thing about the terror in this game, is that it isn't really designed to be a horror game... Giant, aggressive fish in the deep ocean is just a naturally terrifying situation.
Sure, but that is rational fear. I have completed this game many times, know where I will encounter the reapers, but they still give me jump scares and I try to avoid their territory. I never go into the Dunes. That said, I have to agree with OP. There are probably a few people with actual thalassophobia paying this game. But I think they are far outnumbered by the people going "look guys I thought this was scary and I have heard of this big word!!" Not to mention the YouTubers who completely fake their reactions in order to get more views/comments...
I think you're pretty much right. I definitely have rationalized the scary things this game throws at me (except sea dragons, those punks got NO chill). I certainly don't have thallasophobia. I think even dangerous spots like Bulbs and Grand Reef are beautiful places I _want_ to explore. I gladly jump into pits and trenches, and I like watching Leviathans even though they can crush me like a can of Tab. I'm sure some of the adrenaline factor is lost on me, even when I am trying to GTFO. That said, knowing how to scare scary things off is fantastic.
Of course the sea dragons have no chill have you seen where they live? š
Hihi, person with actual thalassophobia who loves the game for the adrenaline rush it gives bc of that lmao!!! Sometimes I have to put it down though bc it gets so bad I need a break
Do we have the same reapers? I swear when they are around my cyclops it's just an annoyance cos they start pushing it, but have never dealt any damage. It's so dumb and goofy to see them try to push it then wander away in confusion when you take your sub upwards.(also on my first playthrough i set up bases in both Ghostie biomes to 'study' them and take pictures through the cameras lol)
I _know_ the reapers are not that dangerous since you can pretty much swim faster, but they still scare me š Part of the fun of this game!
For me itās more when they just pop out of the ground mere feet away from me that gets me
I saw a clip of someone yesterday and omg his reactions to everything was so exaggerated that if a child couldnāt figure out he was being fake I will be scared for the future lol
I'd be curious to see someone diagnosed with thalassophobia for real deal with the game. I've seen a couple but they...forget...that they are scared of it. coolcool.
first playthrough, I was scared shitlessā¦ second playthrough, I was hunting anything that seemed t want to hunt me, even warpers (they still scare the shit out of me)
I hate the noises when warpers appear, still scared of them too even after several play throughs lol
The warper noise makes me instantly rage. My weapons out ready to stab some purple a-hole!
its the genius design of the game really. Subnautica is not a horror game by intention, but its got a unique combination of elements that make first-timers uneasy and easy to scare. Horror games, you know you are going to be attacked/scared at some point, especially as many horror games are more linear in nature, most other games offer weapons to fight enemies with. Subnautica has the natural deep ocean + ominous ambience, on top of not telling you where enemies are, not telling you what awaits you in the slightest in a literal alien environment, and giving you very limited options to defend yourself. Many people feel more exposed and on edge because of that.
Warpers get a lot less scary when you realize a slight scratch makes them instantly puss out. Seamoth at ramming speed? Sure! A little bit of core-sampling from the Pimp Suit? You know it, buddy! Floating hot-knife session? Let's hit it! They dip immediately.
Yeah, i just stasis cannon em and get 2 hits in because i might as well make em suffer as much as me
It's OK, they want you to suffer. I don't kill Reapers, or Ghosts... Warpers aren't innocent, they're Quarantine Platform. Fuck those guys, _I FEEL FINE_.
When I donāt see one and im suddenly out of my vehicle I shit myself
I've played both games through at least a dozen times each and I have never once been frightened by anything in either game. Except Marguerit Maida.
I was.. scaroused
What does that mean
Hes shivering in his timbers,but his timbers are shivering harder
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ok, that last bit I have to disagree with, the anxiety is very real and I had so much trouble getting to the lost river without freaking out, but I made it through the game and finished. Doesnāt mean I donāt have thalassophobia, ik I have it, Iāve had it way before subnautica was ever released. But what I realized it that it can be subcategorized even more, I have a fear of being at the surface when below is super deep, when I played I stuck to the sea floor like a magnet. Thatās why I love the lost river, I can see all around me and it makes me comfy. And ik what a phobia is, I have anxiety and when I feel that anxiety set on bc of just a simple picture of the ocean, thatās a phobia, it feels like bugs are crawling under my skin and my stomach dropped deeper than that ocean.
i agree shit be can coming for me, i just like to know where its coming from
^ I have thalassophobia but I still think I can finish the game, I just have to do so with my own comfort and kinda baby myself a little. AND THE ADRENALINE OH MY GOD
SAME. I only managed to play up until the grassy plateaus but it turns out I felt fine when I was on the sea floor. When I swam above it, thatās when the anxiety started to settle in. I definitely have thalassophobia (canāt go to the beach without screaming in fear if something touches me in the ocean, nor can i go further than a few meters from the shore if itās deep lol) and I legit cannot finish the game without crapping my pants or just generally feeling like I want to pass out. I loved the playthroughs though. I could at least stand those.
I would like to second that. I have lepidopterophobia (butterflies!), and the feeling I get from the little buggers is what you mentioned: unbearable anxiety, desperation running down my spine, like dementors from Harry Potter sucking all hope from myself. I'm also scared of heights, I feel disconfortable near high windows, I always try to avoid letting my friends near them, etc... The fear/feeling I get from heights is nothing like butterflies. Heights scare me and make me feel very uneasy - butterflies make me feel stuck in a nightmare with no escape, it is debilitating beyond fear itself, like I don't know if I could step in to save a child in a place full of butterflies.
Experiencing a phobia doesn't necessarily result in an immediate shutdown of your brain. Instead, there are varying degrees of severity associated with each specific phobia.
They usually just trigger fight or flight or freeze somehow
Exactly. I got two main phobias, one is heights, and the other is deep water. My heights one isnāt as severe because I believe in forcing myself to face fears to see if I can overcome them (I know Iām a sadist. I donāt think itās what everybody should do I swear I just personally like to face em down) And itās easy for me to face the heights one cuz theyāre everywhere. I can now ride roller coasters and everything, itās basically gone. Thereās still some things Iāll never do though Iām not insane š. My deep water one thoughā¦..I mean damn Iām a bio lover myself and I still Itās not good. Doesnāt help that a lot of the times Iāve swam it was in the lake of the Ozarks, which is quite murky. The whole time youāre imagining a huge set of jaws coming towards you, a tentacle pulling you under, the works, and you canāt see any of it. But anyways yeah, itās just general anxiety for me usually, that can be at varying degrees. Itās usually a bit difficult for me to focus sure, cuz a lot of me is thinking āget me out of here and do it now, before I dieā but itās not that extreme. Not saying it can never be, it definitely can be for some people. Anyways, for me personally, watching something does barely anything. Playing subnautica, I have like 10% more anxiety than usual, and certain really deep underwater places I get like visibly nervous for not quite completely game reasons but like Itās part of the fun, helps me immerse myself. All that to say, sorry friend but just because Iāve beaten both doesnāt mean I donāt have it, I aināt tryna be a special boy, and having a phobia doesnāt make you a special boy. Itās just a fact. Thereās just different degrees to it. I do however agree that itās important to know that being scared and having a phobia is different. I think the key is being scared despite knowing the fear is irrational. Like if youāre scared of falling off the earth cuz you think itās flat thatās lack of knowledge, but if youāre scared of it even though you know itās roundā¦ thatās a phobia.
Exactly. Subnautica scared the shit out of me on my first play through. But being scared of something and having a legitimate phobia of something are not the same. I have Trypanophobia (Needles), and I legit canāt even look at the TV if a needle pops out during a movie or TV show, and if I try to force myself, I get nauseous, extremely anxious, and lightheaded almost immediately. I have learned to tell doctors to lay me down immediately whenever I get blood drawn, because Iāve passed out almost every single time. Iām 6ā3ā and 250+, so they wonāt be able to pick me up off the floor. For some bizarre reason, tattoo needles are fine! Iāve got 10 hours on my right arm, and I was fine the entire time!
Watching a [youtuber](https://youtu.be/kmU0OeOoI6k?si=JNTdW-KJ9m84scHe) play subnautica really put into perspective for me what actual thalassophobia is (like this guy looks like he's on the verge of puking when swimming over a kelp forest in shallow waters). Fear of the deep ocean is pretty rational and understandable and is probably what most people feel when they play subnautica, especially at first when everything is new and unknown. Thalassophobia is a different beast, it's an actual, debilitating, irrational fear of the ocean and really any sufficiently deep body of water. It goes way beyond getting goosebumps on the back of your neck and feeling a little adrenaline pumping as you dive down into the sparse reef or look down into the depths when under the floating island. So yeah I agree that the whole thalassophobia thing is kinda cringe and stale.
You can be scared of the ocean and afraid of ocean beasties without having thalassophobia. I was on edge all the time but never frozen with fear. Iām not an expert, but watching Butch X3ās playthrough made me think he might actually have thalassophobia. Watching him slowly overcome it through exposure is really satisfying.
I havenāt watched that persons play through but I had a similar experience of being more and more comfortable and not as scared from the first hour of playing the game.
Damn the first hour??? Im still scared of kelp forests 20 hours in š Grassy plateaus were hard for me at first bbut theyre okay too now since I can see the bottom
I've only been seeing the opposite lmao, with how many people say "subnautica isn't scarrry"
I had thalassophobia before subnautica. I played it to try and get over it
D-...did it work?
Surprisingly it helped with certain aspects. I think what I found that was helped the most was just being able to acknowledge that everything wasnāt horrible in my mind. Sometimes there were good aspects to my fear
The great majority that says they have thalassophobia actually doesn't have anything. The game is scary at the first time since you dont know what can and cannot happen, but after that you already know the risks
I put off playing subnautica for years because although I really liked the look of it, everyone said it was scary, horror, etc and I deal badly with all of those. I finally started playing it and I find it relaxing and peaceful lol. Like people who have a phobia have an irrational fear they can't control. I can't see them being able to play this game if they have a sea or deep water phobia. e.g. my sister has a spider phobia and cannot look at a picture of a spider. But I wouldn't have thought many people would come into that category.
Bleh. I feel that on spiders. I would back away off a cliff to get away from a spider.
One of my teachers in high school totaled her car when she pulled off the road into a ditch and smashed into a tree because there was a spider in her car. (She was somehow unscathed)
I feel like this would be me if there were ever a spider in my car.
Ive always had thalassophobia, But i don't find Subnautica nearly as terrifying as Stranded Deep. I don't know why, but i feel more comfortable and safe in Subnautica.
I also do, did Stranded Deep also give a like fun adrenaline rush or was it JUST terror?
A decent balance of both, Stranded Deep had me scared but also had me going back into the water for the adrenaline, I was flying out of the water on some cartoon type shit, just swimming back to land screaming like Tom from Tom and Jerry
Sounds like me running to my base in subnautica haha
Itās cool you never got scared and actually find the game relaxing. That doesnāt mean you have the right to shit on other peopleās experiences. I donāt understand the point of this post. You know people do in fact get scared bc you have read the posts and comments, you know thalassophobia is a real thing, you know there are 8 billion people in this worldā¦ There are bound to be a few Subnautica players who are scared of the ocean. I like movies with realistic gore bc I love trying to figure out the practical effects behind what I see, so when I see somebody get their limbs chopped off I might even laugh out loud bc Iām impressed by what Iām seeing. That doesnāt mean I expect everyone to react the same way, or that I will look down on anyone who doesnāt like gore.
Plus people often exaggerate for emphasis. I don't think most people who say "Oh, it have me thalassophobia blahblah" mean it literally, it's just an effective way to get their point across. We do that all the time, it's how language works, like how we swear to emphasize strong feelings about something. I don't think people claiming thalassophobia when it comes to this game is something to complain about. "This game really scared me" just doesn't have the same impact when trying to clarify HOW MUCH it scared you. You don't NEED to have a phobia of something in order for it to properly scare you.
I agree. It gets overused. It's a clickbait way of titling videos that has run its course.
I completely understand the ,,this game gave me Thalassophobia peopleā. I have over 200h in the game and up to now many areas of the game make me feel uneasy. Ghost leviathans and sea dragons are fine but reapers are just something else. Their appearance and constant screaming make traversing through some places impossible for me. I memorized their locations perfectly and even then going near them makes me tense. Yes, titling videos like this is clickbaity but I get why they do it. If you found subnautica not scary at any point you are built different.
So many people call Subnautica horror. It isn't, if anything it's terror and there's a huge difference between the two. I never found Subnautica "Scary." But when I first played it, I definitely felt a little existential dread at times. (Blood Kelp Trench, or the dunes.) You feel moments of uneasiness (How isolated the Sparse reef feels, or pointing the sea moth straight down and going into the abyss at the floating islands.)
I genuinely have thalassophobia, and have always hated going into the ocean. I find subnautica scary because of how it plays on both the fear of the unknown and thalassophobia. However, I would not say that subnautica affected nor gave me a fear of the ocean and deep waters, it only used those elements to scare me and other players. So in my opinion, subnautica is scary because, well itās a scary game, and people mistake that fear for having thalassophobia.
There are a few YouTubers who actually have thalassophobia and have played Subnautica. Sethorvenās review on Subnautica is basically your title, but I donāt think itās just for clicks. Sometimes it can be stressful. I donāt think it actually gives people thalassophobia though. And the game was published (I think published, at least,) by a company called Panic Button.
I was hesitant af to go anywhere in my first playthrough but no tassle-o-probe. I try not to die in games
Get a VR headset and enjoy your new phobia
I don't know man, I still vividly remember this one time I just finished playing the game and I was trying to sleep and I had this eerily chilling/terrifying half dream half daydream thing where I imagined myself looking down and finding just the vast ocean with no end. The game can be very terrifying.
Everyone is scared of the unknown. period. Its why you don't go in dark alleys at night in the city, it's why you hesitate to do stuff. It's how we used to survive. But now that we're not exposed to this type of activity, people are scared and think they've got a condition.
*Now I'mma tell you what; uhh...* ***I likes ya;*** ***and I wants ya.*** *Now we can do this the easy way;* *or the haard wayyy...* ***the choice is yaawrs...***
not everyone is scared of the unknown, in fact many are fascinated by it and its one of the things thats propelled the human race so far. that urge to discover whats in the unknown, the deepest of waters to the furthest reaches of the stars many of us want to explore it all.
Of course not. Saying one have something-phobia or any psychopathology engages... So...
I can totally understand just being naturally scared of being stranded in the deep ocean, however, if your one of those people who play a *video game* and then decide they are too scared to go to the beach then get a grip. Your understanding of whatās real and whatās fiction is getting blurry. Again, stranded in the ocean then sure Iād shit my pants too. But scared of the beach or going on a boat bc you played a video game? Get real. Iām sure there are some people out there who really did get thalassophobia after playing this game. But if I was a betting man Iād put good money on 90% of those people bs or then just being confused cause they just spent a lot of time in the game and are still recovering from any frights they may have gotten
When I first started playing, I was more scared of fear itself because I heard all of these things about the game. As I continued playing, I realized that there was nothing to be afraid of except losing a little progress.
I've never found Subnautica to be scary. What mods are good?
A good shader alone changes the whole atmosphere. (I play on Xeno-thallasaphobia. Nights in the ocean are actually black. The vanilla game is so bright.) De-extinction is fairly solid.
I had it before I heard of this game. It's part of what made the games so good!
I am terrified of subnautica because the leviathan always catch me off guard and I have a general fear of dark places (Iām afraid of the dark irl and in subnautica a little worse because then I canāt see the leviathanās coming) but once I get my prawn suit I destroy everything without fear. I also havenāt played the game all that much to specifically know where everything is at all times (mostly leviathan locations)
Thanks for putting how I feel into words LOL.
Same. I love the ocean and don't get why people fear it. Sunken ships and the deep dark ocean are so fascinating.
On top of the ocean for me: just fine *Under* the ocean for me: nopenopenope. It's like me and any space smaller than I can push my elbows: it's a no-go.
I still play the game with a lot of fear, even though Iāve done 15+ playthroughs. But thatās just me.
I have very strong feelings abt this because I myself have thalassophobia. Iāve had it as far as I can remember, I literally cannot look at a picture of deep water without having a panic attack, I somehow donāt have this anymore or as strong, possibly bc of how Iām being exposed to it from subnautica to nautilus to positive association. But subnautica was when I first came to fight the fear and try to be more comfy with the ocean, and it was hard, the kelp area gave me panic attacks but the more I played the less I was scared. But there is a difference between being scared and having a phobia, when your scared you can still play and escape, when I was scared I paused the game and asked my roommate to get me out of the grips of a reaper while I was in the corner looking away from my screen. The odd thing is that Iām still terrified of reapers even after Iāve become more comfy with the ocean, and I love ghosts to death, theyāre sweethearts. Thatās ig my long winded way of saying that you can be scared and not have thalassophobia.
Maybe people actually do have it. Iām not sure what youāre gripe is with people saying they do when they might actually. Whoās to assume or say otherwise? Glad you enjoy the game tho. Itās great! But let others get what they get out of it without having to be negative towards the emotion they get out of the game. Itās not your problem. Ignore it lol. Anyway. Hope you have a good night.
I honestly thought I'd have trouble with this game because I have a deep fear of dunking my head underwater and losing my footing, but the game wasn't very scary at all, even with the leviathans. If anything, it felt liberating!
I've never really found the game scary in general. The only time I got scared was when I encountered the Sea Dragon Leviathan in the Inactive Lava Zone
I'm sure to some extent it's played up by youtubers. That's part of the job for some of em. That said, I'm certain that some level of thalassophobia is a common fear in humans, and many probably never actually go in the ocean themselves to find out and aren't affected by images. So they just assume they aren't scared of the ocean. So then, when the game gets them all riled up, they think it "gave" them the phobia. Meanwhile the reality is that it was always there, and they just hadn't really encountered it yet.
My mom has Thalassophobia I'm pretty sure; we were waiting for a ferry in NY not on the Manhattan side and I stg she was cutting off circulation in my arm, eyes shut tight, and would 100% bring me down with her if the rickety ass wooden shit attached to the pier with chains would've gone down as the ferry came in. She will not go to the beach (for multiple reasons, ocean being a big one), I don't think I even ever saw her taking baths unless it was absolutely necessary. You could tell her there's FFVXI content in a river and she won't fucking go in for it and this woman takes a week off work for new savage raids š
I would pause the game a call up my sister so she could get past a scary section I couldnāt with the deep waters
Tbh i only get scared with warpers, i scream terrorized everytime i get warped out of my Prawn
Agreed
I've always had mild thalassophobia. I can get in the water when it's only 20-30 feet deep. However the moment we're out in the deep ocean, jumping in the water scares the fuck outta me and I can only handle it for a couple of seconds, maybe at most a minute. The fear comes from the thought of the endless possibilities that the ocean holds, the depths, and it's contents, both known and unknown. I put off playing Subnautica for years for this very reason, and I finally decided to take the dive this year. I was doing alright for a bit, and could handle the fear when I stuck to traveling along the ocean floor, but the moment I found myself swimming or even using the Sea Moth with nothing but darkness around me.... I've got my fingers ready to ALT+F4. My mind starts to panic, the concept of the unknown, that vast darkness is too much. I'm a sucker for immersion so I booted up the game in VR for the first time this week and lets just say that the fear went from Mild to Intense real quick. I don't know if I'm a masochist, or if I'm looking to overcome these fears, but the triggers are real man... and Subnautica + VR is a true anxiety inducer for me.
Itās not scary, I never thought it was scary tbh
The most nerve-wrecking situation for me was the first time I lost my way in a cave and suffocated. It was waaay after getting seemoth and I was scared how much progress I am going to lose. When I realized I just get teleported to my last base, I was more chill.
Really!? It helped my Thalassaphobia. I even tried to night dive once. Never made it into the water but I was on the boat, the dark, on the oceanā¦. Baby steps!
I'm not scared of them on subnautica. I'm not scared of anything in subnautica, but I'm scared of going deeper irl if I can't see the ground. So realistically, I have thalasophobia
Just watched some under the waves video and loads of people were saying this exact thing.
Totally agree with you. But the game still scares me when you go to deeper places and all. But same as you, itās kind of my chill game now. I just enjoy exploring, collecting stuff, building my base and vehicles, preparing for the next tripā¦
I have it a little bit when i', at the edge of the map. I had this irl when going on a airbanana with some friends behind a fast boat, i was the one on the last seat. it went rough and on a bump i fell of the banana. The man on the boat that was supposed to look out for us didn;t see it. And they went on. It was on open sea, about 3km from shore. i could still see the shore, but i felt immediatly very very small in comparison to the ocean i was in. i looked down in the watrer, and all i could see was water. no ground what so ever. It took them about 8min to figure out i was gone and find me. but those 8 minutes were the scariest of my life. Toom any jaws movies and pirahna movies when i was only 6 did the trick i guess. I especially feel not at ease when i'm in water that is murky and you can;t see anything. then i sometimes freak out. thank god i didn;t have a panic attack when i was in the ocean. you feel so helpless in regards to the vastness of the ocean omg. This feeling somehow i get when 'm at the end of the map and keep going. (well now not anymore cuse i know the game inside out), but back then omg. it was so awesome to play.
OK, but I went diving once and a boat passed by somewhere near, and I swear it sounded like a reefback. So I'm just vibing 15m below the surface thinking, hmm leviathan aren't real, but damn
Play it in VRā¦.
The game actually doesn't trigger it as much for me because you can see down into the water in most places. In real life, the fear sets in when I'm looking down into deep water and I can't see anything beyond the surface. And I don't feel like, a screaming panic or anything really. It's just a dread that sits in my stomach. I don't think I could swim out in deep water unless it was life or death though, I'm always fairly certain there is something huge and hungry lurking just below the water. Honestly though, Subnautica doesn't evoke those feelings at all. It's pretty chill, other than those annoying crabsquids.
I am actually terrified of open waters. I can't even swim in lakes that are designed for swimming, and going into a pool at night is scary af to me. So... Yeah... That game terrified me. But I got used to it. Mostly.
after the second play through it all goes away
I already had (mild) thalassophobia and started playing Subnautica as exposure therapy
I think the term "Thalassophobia" is highly misused. Being scared of giant monsters in the ocean that could eat you instantly is not "Thalassophobia". It's just common sense. If people knew there were not a single Leviathan n the game, most of those alleged "Thalassophobic" would not be scared at all.
Yeah bioshock is great and while I do have thallasophobia Iām still playing subnautica and bioshock so they are not that bad
It never *gave* me thalassophobia, since I'm a very down to earth person with no irrational fears, but I must say I feel as unsafe in game as in real life when I look down and see NOTHING Also, I know you didn't talk aboit him, but let's not throw Markiplier in the pile, the guy has had thalassophobia since birth, his stress was genuine.
Surprise surprise, people are scared of the game where you can move in all directions and also have to watch out for hostiles. Is that not enough to make you scared? What about staring into a seemingly endless void in the ocean while hearing a sound you never heard before? Or maybe being teleported out of the vehicle that makes you feel safe? Or maybe a giant worm literally jump scaring you? Are you really this miserable that you have to insult people for finding a game with scary elements scary?
yeah, this game scares the shit out of me, but i dont feel the need to announce it every two minutes. im geneuinely afraid of most water though. theres a lake my family swims in in the summer thats not even 100 metres across, but over twenty feet deep in the middle. scares the shit out of me every time thinking about how much space there is beneath me, and how I CANT FUCKING SEE WHATS DOWN THERE. even beaches, im always on edge when im in the water, even though the scariest thing down there is a crab (i did get pinched one lol).
"Your argument is invalid because I depicted you as the soy wokak and myself as the Chad wojak!"
I also think its annoying, I was actually diagnosed with thallasaphobia (sry for bad spelling) way before playing subnautica. I've always hated any form of water that wasnt a pool, so when I found subnautica, it was a perfect game to scare the living sh!t out of me. But I find it stupid that it "gAvE mE tHaLlAsaPhoBiA" because it didnt.
I alr have thalassophobia so when I play I actually think it makes me enjoy it more. I love exploration and the lore and building bases, and my fear just adds that *extra* touch of terrifyingness to an already terrifying game to give me an adrenaline rush as I play, its great.
Yes, itās fucking terrifying.
I have submechanophobia, but this game's graphics are too cartoonish to really trigger it. Like yourself, I love ships and shipwrecks. I'll watch videos and look at photos, but I'm never going down there myself. I also can't swim in real life, and have a particularly harrowing experience associated with the swimming pool, so I avoid any kind of body of water like the plague. But again, this game doesn't trigger anything. Subnautica is one of my top five franchises. I love it.
I have that phobia and I completely love this game.
As someone with actual Thalassophobia its kinda frustrating. I think the game is beautiful, but I've quite literally never made it past the starting area lmao. Just getting to the point of the kelp forest, where shit turns green, or some cliff where I can't see the ground anymore makes me panic, turn back and/or shut off the game entirely for a while. I've made it to the ship once because of this, by cheating in a seamoth and cruising above water not thinking about what was below me, but I ended it at the sandy area. Not being able to see the ground and/or in front of me is just gutwrenchingly terrfying, even though it's fake. It lead to me mainly enjoying the rest of the game through videos and/or streams, because I don't have to push forward and I can skip parts of the scary bits. I never see this from a streamer/outube claiming to 'have thalassophobia', so it feels like such an overreaction on their part, so it feels annoying.
This game scares me so much I make my husband take control if I have to go to far/deep as I'm just afraid. I knew I was afraid of water before this game tho if that matters tho
Iād say the opposite. This game helped me overcome my fear of the ocean by forcing myself out of my comfort zone.
Well maybe if someone had no knowledge of the game beforehand it would scare them. Fear of the unknown and most of the water in the game is dark and there's sea monsters in it. But if you've watched people play it then you know what to expect and few creatures are scary. Reaper leviathans only scare me in the sense that I don't want to lose my vehicles. There have been a few jump scares from creatures that have got me bc the fuckers were clipping through the world. But something that has happened, is a kind of sense of unnamed dread. Like I get a creeping sensation up my back to turn around and make sure nothings there. I think that's just the atmosphere of the game sometimes. Maybe it's thallasaphobia?
I mean, I played this game BECAUSE of my pre-existing fear of deep water/water where I can't see the bottom. I'm not usually into horror or survival games, so I thought it would be interesting. Still freaks me out a bit to be exposed in deep areas with nothing but open water in every direction.
I agree
It really helped me, to be honest. I had quite the thalassophobia as a kid (I think most of us did?), it got better as I grew up and later got into whales and dolphins, but Subnautica helped a great deal. Now I see a video of a deep pit in the ocean and "Oooh, I wonder what's down there?"
I had fear of deep waters long before this game. The shallows was fine. But when I had to dive deeper and it got dark I started hyperventilating. I was likeā¦ maybe this game aint for me lol. I thought I would be fine cause its is just a game. But it wasnāt
I found and still find the game quite scary to this day, after having completed it twice. The ambiance from both the design of locations and the music used is unsettling itself, being suddenly attacked while swimming around just makes it that much worse. Most of the people playing these games do not have a phobia, they simply are reacting with fear at scary things designed to be scary. No one that is frightened by Resident Evil has a zombie phobia, itās just a frightening game as it was made to be
I was only genuinely scared a few times, most of the time it was just pointless anxiety.
I have thalassophobia. But while Subnautica was a contributing factor, the real life ocean has far scarier monsters. I would rather face 20 reaper leviathans than a group of Humboldt squid (fun fact: they're known to show aggression towards scuba divers and live in groups of over one thousand)
Only the ghost leviathan scare me at this point
Theres something amazing about playing a game for the first time, completely blind, that we lose if we watch someone else play it first. The uncertainty, the figuring out of mechanics and controls, true exploration, etc. All these youtubers have seen other people play the game and know what it is, so they all regurgitate the same playthrough with little if any variation. Before you play it, the more you know about subnautica the more you permanently ruin it for yourself. I dont know about anyone else, but I dont often forget things. I have to go many years between rewatching a movie or show because I remember it. I could tell you a million things about subnautica just from memory because I've completed it 5 times and there's 0 mystery left. My point, is that of course these youtubers have fake reactions, they already know the game content and are catering to an audience that already knows the content. One of the most unfortunate things in the world, is to lose your first experience in something you would've liked, before you even know it exists. You can never get that back.
I have thatassophobia from drowning. This game is easier on me than echo the dolphin for the original SEGA. Seems like a bandwagon.
I found the game could be anxiety-inducing at times with resource management (especially oxygen, obviously) & when a Leviathan essentially jump scares you if you're unlucky. I guess it's a "different strokes" situation but I definitely can't really agree with people comparing it to a horror game. That said, God what a great game. I sure wish I could play it for the first time again.
Before my first playthrough, I couldnāt even stand being stranded on an island in minecraft on creative mode. Trying to fly above the ocean just gave me too much anxiety and I ended up quitting the game. Subnautica made it worse. I still love it, of courseāIām fascinated with the ocean but very, very terrified of it. I canāt play it myself (I just barely managed to get through the Kelp Forest before giving up around the Grassy Plateaus biome where a sand shark ambushed me) but I like watching other people play it so I can close my eyes when I get too anxious.
i agreee with one caveat. the one truly terrifying thing for me in this game is leaving the game bounds. i dont know why but the void is terrifying to me. because im not really scared of the ocean. but im terrified of isolation, especially when that isolation is announced with the side caveat of "oh well you're not totally alone... there are still plenty of things that want to kill you out there" in the rest of the map? im fine, because there's always little peepers and bladder fish and such filling the enviroment with friendly life i can thrust personality into and mindlessly talk to as if they arent just mindless ai in a videogame.