Getting feedback from players at the earliest stages: the experience of the Subnautica team

The authors of Subnautica wanted to make a small casual project, the purpose of which is to cause the player a sea of feelings: from admiration to horror. But something went wrong. As a result, they had a big game on their hands, investments in which amounted to $ 10 million over five years.

Debugging and polishing even a small game requires close communication with the community already at the earliest stages of its development. As soon as the Unknown Worlds product became at least a little playable, it was given to Steam users. The studio called it “earliest access” — “the earliest access”.

The essence of earliest access was a special “Feedback” button in the Subnautica menu. The player could take a screenshot of any moment of the game and attach a comment to it and also mark it with one of the four icons: “very happy”, “happy”, “unhappy”, “angry”.

The “Feedback” button in the Subnautica menu

The method allowed the player to:

• complain about technical errors (bugs, frame rate drop, etc.);
• give an assessment of one or another gameplay mechanics;
• evaluate the design of the levels and the visual component of the game;
• express your impressions of traveling to locations.

Players could choose a review topic (“basic”, “gameplay”, “bug”, “frame rate”).

Summing up the reviews, the studio could improve the game. But it wasn’t just that. The players told the authors how they felt going through Subnautica — that was the special benefit of the Feedback button. As already mentioned, it was very important for Unknown Worlds that their game evoke emotions. Every aspect of the gameplay worked for it. Eg:

• The open world awakens a passion for exploration in the player;
• The construction of an underwater base gives a sense of security;
• The underwater setting makes the game mysterious and capable of causing tension;
• The need to monitor oxygen levels and flooding levels also causes tension, etc.

Between March 2014 and November 2015, the number of positive reviews increased significantly.
This method also helped the studio to identify the most “emotionless” areas of the game and diversify them.

 By the way, in the process of creating the game, the studio refused to use modular submarines, because they did not cause any emotions.

Over time, player reviews began to meet the expectations of the studio more and more. At the “earliest access” stage, users noted that the game admires them with its beauty, but also causes fear of the sea and depth.

The database of feedback received by the developers of Subnautica
Thus, Subnautica only became bigger and richer as it was developed.

Updates have become monthly. Thanks to the players, the developers realized that the game needed more spectacular creatures, and after a number of iterations, horror elements appeared in the game: frightening underwater inhabitants. Also Unknown Worlds added screamers.

Subnautica developers see a lot of advantages in open development. In their presentation, they stressed: it is necessary to fix all the negative feedback, summarize all the positive and independently ask the players how else to improve the project.

Recall that the release of the full version of the game took place at the end of January this year.

Also on the topic:

• Epic Games Store shared downloads of the free version of Subnautica, the successes of Metro: Exodus and new exclusives