A Manatee, Subnautica

I didn’t really know I had thalassophobia until I tried Subnautica in VR. I’d been saving this game, which had some out several years earlier, until I had a headset to use with it. And going in, um, I really thought I’d play for more than an hour.

As the game begins your spaceship escape pod plunges into an alien ocean. It is daytime, and you quickly realize that your only chance of survival lies in scavenging for resources underwater. I jump in and start gathering coral and junk. Neat. Good graphics. The alien fish are cute. One small, darting species attacks me when I get too close, but no prob. I just avoid their cave.

As I swim about gathering bio-junk the daylight slowly wanes. Bioluminescence proliferates. The good graphics are now beautiful. But the water’s also looking a lot spookier. I calm my nerves and continue harvesting, noting a few new species here and there. Little things, mostly, but also a big thing, some sort of sea cow I’d seen in the distance during the day. Its bulbous, spherical tail is now glowing. Apparently I got a little too close, because suddenly it started swimming toward me. And in VR, this thing feels very, very large.

I am instantly freaked out, like, 0 to 60 in .3 seconds. Turning tail, I fairly fly out of the water and don’t stop jamming keys until I’m safely back on the deck of my crashed pod. I go inside and notice its life-support systems are draining, and I haven’t really made any progress toward stopping that. To do so would mean going back into the water, and you know what? That was enough of that. I closed the game and haven’t gone back to it since.

In theory I want to…but I haven’t. I just looked it up and this mostly peaceful creature was the one that scared me. It’s not even terribly hostile, and I’ve heard the stories of the legit, actual horrors that await in this game’s depths. I’m fairly sure I’d be okay (enough) with VR Alien: Isolation, but Subnautica? I just don’t know if I’m up to it. —Alexandra Hall