I’ve been playing through this and noticed something really messed up that people don’t talk about much. When you look at all the escape pods that launched, only a couple actually worked right with their floating systems. The rest of the survivors had terrible endings - either killed by ocean creatures or just couldn’t make it in the harsh environment.
What really gets me is thinking about the protagonist differently. Instead of saying Riley survived just because he’s the player character, maybe he became the main character exactly because he was the only one tough enough to make it through everything. The game is way darker when you think about all those other people who didn’t make it.
Never really thought about it that way but you’re totally right. Finding all those audio logs from people who were so close to surviving makes it way more depressing than most survival games.
Totally agree, those PDAs really hit hard. It’s heartbreaking seeing how close they were to making it or fixing things before everything went downhill. Makes you appreciate the struggle even more.
What gets me even more is how the game tricks you into thinking it’s this beautiful underwater adventure at first. All those colorful fish and coral reefs make it seem almost peaceful until you start piecing together what actually happened. The ocean looks so inviting but it’s basically a massive graveyard. Really messes with your head once you connect the dots.
The survival aspect hits different when you realize you’re literally swimming past other people’s graves. All those wrecked lifepods scattered around the ocean floor aren’t just scenery, they’re actual death scenes. Makes exploring feel way more haunting than just collecting resources. The game does a good job making you feel isolated but knowing there were dozens of other people who almost made it really drives home how brutal that planet actually is.