When comparing Subnautica vs Antichamber, the Slant community recommends Subnautica for most people. In the question“What are the best indie games on Steam?” Subnautica is ranked 9th while Antichamber is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose Subnautica is:
The game takes place underwater, and it looks very good especially because of the new candy eye update. Looking up at the sun through the ocean looks pleasant and real. Coral reefs have multiple colors and look real as well. Graphics wise this game looks great and pulls off its theme of an underwater survival quite well.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great theme and looks
The game takes place underwater, and it looks very good especially because of the new candy eye update. Looking up at the sun through the ocean looks pleasant and real. Coral reefs have multiple colors and look real as well. Graphics wise this game looks great and pulls off its theme of an underwater survival quite well.
Pro The sound effects really set up the overall atmosphere
The sound design in Subnautica is amazing. Even though the soundtrack can be bland at times, the sound effects for the ocean noises are incredibly atmospheric and really help to get the player in the mood for exploring a vast, alien ocean.
Pro Interesting creature design
The creature design in Subnautica deserves some major praise. Spotting a new, never seen before creature is extremely rewarding and there's a large variety of alien creatures to look for.
Pro Has a mode for people who just want to explore
Subnautica has four game modes: survival, freedom, hardcore, and creative. The first one pits the player against the elements and forces them to think about food and water through its thirst and hunger mechanics.
The second game mode basically removes every mechanic that is related to surviving, such as the aforementioned hunger and thirst mechanics. It also leaves all the items in your inventory after you die. In other words, it's a game mode for people who want to explore without having to bother with surviving. Which is nice, since Subnautica has a lot of stuff to explore.
The third one, as the name tells us, is more difficult. Not only do you have to worry about health, oxygen, water and hunger, you will have to worry about your life. Since this game mode gives you one chance to live, no respawning. If you die, you'll lose your progress and will have to start over again.
The fourth one will let you build a base of your dreams without worrying about food, oxygen, or thirst. It is the best mode for people who want to build and don't want to gather resources.
Pro No pointless multiplayer
Not every damn thing needs multiplayer, and multiplayer can often ruin an otherwise incredible experience. There's none to be found here, and that intensifies the lonely atmosphere. Also, the creators didn't waste resources on something that would fundamentally undermine the experience so they could focus on making the game the wonderful thing that it is.
Pro Very interesting for both new and long-time players
But it goes faster when you learn the game. Because everything is done manually.
Pro Incredibly satisfying tool-building mechanics
The whole process of creating new tools is mostly done using a sophisticated 3D-printer available from the start of the game. You gather various resources and transform them to create tools that you will need for your survival.
For example, organic matter gets printed into raw carbon, combine carbon with some zinc and you get a battery; combine that battery with some glass and you get a flashlight that helps you see in the dark. It's very straightforward but incredibly satisfying when you build your tools, especially since you are doing all of this while swimming in an ocean filled with predators.
Pro Brilliant Puzzles
The primary theme to puzzles in Antichamber is that things aren't how they appear. If you walk down a hallway and turn around, you might be in a totally different area. This leads to some incredibly interesting and difficult puzzles, forcing you to think about the world around you in a totally new way.
Pro Unique minimalist visuals
Using stark white halls with glowing colors there is a minimal beauty to Antichamber. One room houses great abstract art which changes depending on which way you are looking at it.
Pro Wise quotes
Pro Lateral thinking
Pro Good for speed running
A great game to put your speed skills to the test! Great for those who love any percent speedruns!
Cons
Con Lacks Co-Op
This game was meant to be a survival game (and a bit of horror), most survival games are difficult, may get boring to play alone after time and this game has both. Having a second survivor in the story would mean to rewrite it again, but having a friend in an alien world would be better.
Con No real story
A bit underdeveloped story. Only in notes and some short cgi animations.
Con Lack of story leaves the player wanting
There is not much of a story to be found in the game and what there is is pretty convoluted and has the player asking what even happened by the end of the game.
Con Short for its price
The time to beat the game is well around 7 hours for an average player, and there's not much extra content left after that. In that time the game doesn't exactly go deep in its innovations on the "mind-bending" idea (no gravity flips, just teleportations).
Con Focuses less on its main selling point near middlegame
Near the middle of the game, you get a thing that a lot of the puzzles start to focus on, and the mind-bending puzzles and tricks to the player take more of a backseat as this mechanic changes the game to more of a traditional style of puzzle game. There are still elements of it, but much less of it.
Con Playing it literally hurts my eyes
Good lord the art director ought to have done a better job.