I’m a big fan of the indie game Natural Selection 2 and the developer Unknown Worlds. Originally I think they were a group of modders who created the absolutely fantastic Natural Selection mod for the original Half Life. Following the success of Natural Selection they decided to make a commercial version out of the sequal Natural Selection 2. I’ve followed the NS2 story for a long time, the developers had it rough, they put a lot of work in to NS2 as a Source engine based game only to find that the engine didn’t do what they needed and decided to build an engine from the ground up. Due to this change it took a long time for the game to see the light of day and I’m sure there were many funding scares along the way.
I was an early backer of NS2, it meant i payed more for the game than usual (although they gave me a free copy, some super special skins for my character etc) but the early backing system kept them afloat long enough to release the game. They’ve tried many different ways to raise money now the game is live, but none of them have upset the balance of the game and they’ve never sold extra content, extra content has always been free for everybody. They also hosted events for the community and they’ve come up with initiative ways of helping noobs/casuals play without being stomped on by the hardcore.
Because of this I’ve always had a lot of time for Unknown Worlds and was really pleased to hear today that they have been working on a new game. The game is called Subnautica and is currently in pre-alpha, which means there is a long way to go. Unknown Worlds has a habit of showing things of really early, which is great for gamers because we get a glimpse of things to come, but I wonder how the developers keep their sanity when they get feedback on really early builds.
I’ll let you head over to the Unknown Worlds site to check out most the information and screenshots, but apparently the game is a underwater adventure and here is one of a player interacting with underwater creatures:
Source: Unknown Worlds
It looks beautiful! The NS2 engine makes the game look fantastic so I wonder if the base of the engine is related. Looking forward to more info as it comes out. I wonder if this will be Oculus Rift/VR enabled, it seems the sort of game that might work with it. Until then here is a clip of me getting owned Natural Selection 2, in case you are interested in seeing it in action if you have never played it:
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