Subterrain is an interesting game. It's a game that's been on my mind for a long time, it's a game I had meant to 100% for literally years until I got around to it this year, or last year. It's also something of a tenuous recommend from myself. I recommend the game for what I like about it, what I find interesting, and what it's trying to do. What holds this game back is some of its mechanics feeling surface level, the enemies being dull, and it's incredibly padded playtime. I think it's a really interesting and fun concept for a survival game, its specific type is the kind of thing that drilled into a soft spot in my skull. I would *love* to see a game like this, more in depth or expanded in some way. The game goes like this: You wake up in prison, break out because the power failed, discover that everyone is dead and mutants are all over the mars complex, you head down to the central hub area that becomes your base of operations and you launch excursions out into other parts of the facility connected to the tram network in an attempt to figure out what's going on and get out alive. You'll be scavenging for materials, junk, and food as you progress through what are effectively dungeons with various levels, anywhere from 2-10, to find what you need. All the while you're racing against the clock, as enemy density and threat level marches ever onward, eventually to the point where you'll be facing regular invasions on the central hub where hordes of mutants attempt to destroy the reactor powering the facility. Actual upgrades and "Progress" (player wise) comes from sticking items into researching machines, destroying them in the process but allowing fabrication machines to construct higher tiers. Past a certain point, items are considered a higher 'tier', and as such more advanced software for the machines must be found, researched, built, and slotted into the machines so you can access stronger items. There's also a botany and mining area that you'll always have running to produce minerals, fruits and veg for you to break down into useful crafting resources. The big problem with this game is its padding. What I mean by this is that toward mid and late game, these "Dungeons" (other areas in the facility, like casinos, shopping districts, and so on) begin to get LONG. You end up having to explore entire levels so you don't miss something potentially important, as the Software Upgrades don't tend to be designated with specific floor numbers, just the district. As enemy density and threat goes up, this turns every floor into a real slog. Paired with your limited time on excursions (hunger, thirst, fatigue, the need to use the toilet, battery life, lifesupport), you end up shooting through the same enemies for extended periods of time. This isn't too bad on the normal and easy difficulties, most of the tedium comes at that point from going through very samey looking areas that don't have anything *interesting* in them to do or interact with other than blindly sprinting around while you're shot up on speed boosting drugs, on the higher difficulties, though, you very quickly end up in a spot where all of the higher health, more dangerous, enemies spawn. This means it takes longer, which means enemy density and threat goes up, feedback loop and all that. It all adds up to make a very boring, repetitive experience. Coupled with the fact you don't have enough power for a lot of the game to keep areas running to run the life support in those areas, IF you find them, to slow down enemy spawn rates for that area. Spoilers from here onward: In the end game, you find "Purifiers" that not only slow down enemy spawns drastically, but are able to COMPLETELY remove enemies and their spawns from areas, completely securing them. This is required to be able to fight the two final bosses, which are not great, and this doubles spawn rate once you acquire the blueprints. You are warned ahead of time, of course, and you should only do this once you have all the best gear. On the highest difficulty, this meant that every single area was *fully* red. This meant I spent real life hours slogging through every district, one by one, to slowly clean them out of all the highest tier, spongiest, boring and deadly enemies in the game. I open a door, and it's a monster closet with 30 of those mutants that throw giant exploding balls at you that insta kill you on that difficulty. I signed up for that, so I can't complain about the difficulty (I will a little - arbitrarily inflating health values isn't a fun approach to difficulty.), and paired with my earlier complaints about level design... The enemies aren't that interesting? You have Dude That Punches You, you have Dude That Spits At you, the weird eyeball thing that opens doors, and the Floating MUtant Dude That Super Murders You With Energy Projectiles. And The Eggs That Are There To Indicate Enemies Being Spawned In And For Some Reason Take Like 500 Shotgun Rounds To Destroy. Another point I'd like to make is the weapon modding? There's the idea here that Weapons are "Modular", Weapon CORES determine the functionality of the gun, be it a pistol, SMG, or shotgun. Barrels modify the Crit, Spread, and some other affects, Heatsinks cool the gun faster and allow more heat to be built up before it overheats. In reality, these are strictly linear in progression, if that makes sense. There's no player expression to making guns, no interesting designs, every higher tier barrel is a strict upgrade. Every higher tier heatsink is a strict upgrade. There's no barrels here that give you more crit, but more spread, or modify how a gun might shoot. There's no heatsink here that has a super high capacity, but low cooling. And the Cores only allow you to put as many points into them that are relevant to the tier - so you always use the same, or below barrels/heatsinks. Despite all that, I still enjoy it for the most part. I probably won't revisit the hardest difficulty, though. I like the vibes. I enjoy the music, for what little there is, some of it has... pretty decently fitting vibes for how alone I feel in this game. The desolate districts still stocked and full of things as if everything had just come to a stop naught but a few hours ago. The occasional signs of struggle you see here and there, the few times the game employs a bit of mystique and hides things behind doors or barriers you'll never get across, a glimpse into a bit of story of a person within the world. The text logs that fill in details about the corrupt higher ups of the mars base. I wish the environmental story telling and such things occured more often, the tens upon tens of floors I've done might stand out more if they had anything going for them. Hell, I even like what little voice acting there is in this game. I'd take a thousand games that make the same mistakes on the path to game development and expanding the skill of game development than I would one more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bit of AI Slop ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I'd take any of the stuff I'd complain about here, or anywhere else for that matter, just because it at least represents human work that people put into it. At least this is an honest bit of work. Some of the big indie hits all use that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI Gen Voice, or use Gen AI in concept art phases or designing things for them. I'd take a lot of weird little out the products, like this game or anything else, over people consigning their thought processes to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ *AI*. What's the point of concept art if you just get AI to make it for you, man.