Subnautica: Below Zero
Worth it · Narrative · 2021
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $29.99.
- Length
- 20.2h
- Value
- $1.48/hr
- Reviews
- 90% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 8 GB of memory, Intel HD 530 or better, 15 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS.
Dive into a freezing underwater adventure on an alien planet. Below Zero is set two years after the original Subnautica. Return to Planet 4546B to uncover the truth behind a deadly cover-up. Survive by building habitats, crafting tools, & diving deeper into the world of Subnautica.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $7.49, set in August 2025. It has been discounted 37 times in the 8 years tracked here, typically at 55 percent off, with about 6 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 3 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 6 weeks.
On value it sits in the top 3 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 97 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 91 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Subnautica ($29.99, scores 93) beats it on value, while it beats Stranded Deep ($19.99, scores 40).
This site sampled 800 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 10 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written May 2026 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 75 percent of the 3,459 reviews written there were positive, against 90 percent overall, and those are 3 percent of everything written about it.
5 years after release it still had 698 people in it at once.
Valve rates it Steam Deck Verified, so it runs on the handheld without fiddling.
The drop-off
88% start to 20% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
698 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
If you liked the first one, you will love Subnautica: Below Zero. It improves everything previously played and adds necessary novelties to this sequel. Everyone who loves underwater world and survival genre will be delighted with this video game.
Another fantastic game, just like its predecessor. In terms of gameplay, it's definitely a step forward: quality-of-life changes, new blueprints, ways to combine and craft items, base-building - all of that was great fun. The world is still good, but somewhat weaker than in the first instalment. Instead of being credibly structured around a volcano, as in the first instalment - with its biomes extending and changing...
Honestly not recommended at all if you played Subnautica already and you find Subnautica's gameplay loop / replayibility non-existent like I do. Not gonna get into the details but in all honesty Subnautica was one of the most fun I ever had ever, and it's probably awesome in VR, but the game has zero replayibility whatsoever, at least for me. There is no way you find any fun in scanning stuff on the surface and look...
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
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Subnautica: Below Zero scores 71/100 on the BANG Score (worth it). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/848450/subnautica-below-zeroThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 12, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.