Subnautica is one of the best survival games of the decade. It combines all the key elements of survival games: resource collection, crafting, and a harsh environment. But it adds extra layers of tension. Not only is the world of Subnautica a three-dimensional space that is challenging to navigate, but it’s full of deadly creatures that can spring out at you from any angle and at any time, forcing you to stay alert in order to stay alive.
In a game like this, not knowing how to start can set you back a long time and lead to frustrating deaths that keep you from progressing in the game. Here are ten critical first steps that can put you on track to explore the larger world and face the more exciting discoveries waiting for you.
10 Air Tanks
In case you didn’t know, in Subnautica you will spend most of your time underwater, but in order to do that, you need to have a good air supply. Your initial air supply gives you about 30 seconds underwater before you have to surface. Fortunately, making an air tank is easy.
All you need is titanium, which you can get in abundance by picking up metal salvage from the seafloor. Take it to the fabricator in your survival pod and you’ll be able to craft an air tank. Once you’ve expanded your tank once, be on the lookout for the ingredients to expand it again: more titanium, plus silver and glass.
9 Water
Assuming you’re playing in survival mode, you have to worry about air, health, food, and water. You’re on a planet covered in water, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find something to drink, right? Unfortunately, the game is designed to emphasize the old aphorism “Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”
If you want to have drinkable water, you have to filter or purify it. The easiest solution is a bladderfish, which lets you filter water. A better solution is making bleach from salt and coral tube samples, but to do this, you need to have a knife.
8 Food
Food is another constant need in Subnautica. Your food meter doesn’t run down as quickly as your water meter, but it will keep you from making much progress if you don’t know how to get food. Fortunately, getting food is very simple in Subnautica.
Just catch a fish with your hands. It takes a little bit of practice. You can eat fish raw, but if you want to get the most benefit, you will want to cook the fish. Watch out, though: once you cook a fish, it can start to go bad. Fish lasts longer is you preserve it with salt.
7 Knife
Of all the tools you need in the early game, the knife is your most critical. It improves your ability to harvest resources, and it protects you from the larger predators you will encounter near your escape pod. Unfortunately, to get material for your knife, you need to head to the creepervine “forest” where the stalkers dwell. The medium-sized reptilian predators can eat you quickly, so watch for them, then hurry into the forest for the creepervine seed clusters.
Collect as many of these as you can. The seeds can be used to make silicone rubber as well as a lubricant (which you’ll need later). Once you have the knife, your character will show off some fancy moves with it, but getting good at using it takes good. (Fortunately, you’ll get lots of practice swimming in the creepervines.
6 Fins
Humans aren’t equipped to travel quickly underwater. Since you can’t change your anatomy, you need to augment it with the equipment available.
Fortunately, fins will dramatically increase your swimming speed, and they’re easy to make. All you need is silicone. Once you’ve got your creepervine seed clusters and you’ve made your knife, make some extra silicone to make yourself a set of fins.
5 Scanner
The scanner gives you critical information about yourself and the world. You can do a self-scan at any time to check up on your health. More importantly, you can scan animals to see what you can do with them. In addition, the scanner lets you get information from components in order to assemble blueprints of major technologies.
The main ingredient you need for a scanner is a battery. To make a battery, collect acid mushrooms and copper ore. The mushrooms are easy to find around your lifepod, but the copper will be hidden inside limestone outcroppings.
4 Repair Tool
When your ship went down, the escape pod allowed you to fly to safety. But not all went as planned. The escape pod was damaged, and you need to repair it. The repair tool will do that, but you’ve got to build it first. The main ingredient in the repair tool is cave sulfur. You will find this inside a sulfur plant.
The problem is that the sulfur plant is inhabited by a crashfish, which will charge you and explode. Once you get the sulfur, you can make a repair tool, which will let you fix the damaged systems in the escape pod. This makes the place seem more habitable, but also fixing the radio will let you access some missions that will give you goals.
3 Flashlight
It’s like they say on Game of Thrones: “the night is dark and full of terrors.” There’s not much you can do about the terrors (yet), but at least with the flashlight, you can do something about the dark.
Getting the flashlight will not only make it easier to explore and harvest at night but will make it easier to venture into caves. A flashlight is essentially a battery with some glass. Search for quartz deposits to process into glass.
2 Radiation Suit
When the Aurora crashed, it suffered significant damage to its drives. As a result, any attempt to approach the wreck will trigger a warning about radiation. If you persist, the radiation will hurt you. Unless you have a radiation suit. To make a radiation suit, you need lead and fiber.
The fibers you can process from creepvine, which you can now cut off with your knife. You won’t get the usual message about harvestable resources, you just have to slash with the knife. Lead is a little harder to find. It’s in sandstone outcropping. Keep breaking them until you get them.
1 Seaglide
Even with fins, swimming is not the fastest way to get around. You need more speed to expand your exploration range, and the first tool that really speeds you up is the Seaglide. The Seaglide is essentially a jet engine you hold onto, letting it pull you along.
Most of the components of the Seaglide are ones you’ve already harvested and hopefully were smart enough to hold onto. The big thing you’ll need is a circuit board. To make a circuit board, you’ll need to break some table coral. Just hit it with your knife, and the pieces will fall.
NEXT: 10 Essential Tips For Building The Subnautica Cyclops
