The interesting thing is just beyond the point where turning back would be sensible. A darker stretch of water, a shape below the reef or a signal you cannot quite leave alone can turn a supply run in Subnautica into a proper expedition, with the journey home suddenly making every upgrade feel worth building. Getting comfortable in that ocean never quite removes the temptation to leave its comfortable parts behind.
The best games like Subnautica keep that relationship between preparation and curiosity alive, whether they send you into another ocean or give you an airship, a spaceship or a very battered car. These ten PC games are on Steam, with choices for a finished solo mystery, shared survival and the simple pleasure of making somewhere hostile feel a little more like home.
Below Zero understands the appeal of spotting something beautiful underwater and immediately wondering whether you can reach it before you need air. Its arctic corner of Planet 4546B puts new creatures, research stations and twisting passages within tempting distance, while the equipment you assemble gradually turns those glimpses into proper expeditions. You are investigating what happened to your sister, so every abandoned facility has a reason to become more than a useful source of materials.
The modular Seatruck is an especially appealing travelling companion, letting you bring more of the comforts of a base along as the journey becomes ambitious. Going ashore introduces a different problem when the cold starts making the water look positively welcoming. The personal investigation gives the adventure a more conversational direction than the original, but preparing for another dive still has that familiar power to consume an evening.
Sharing the discovery changes the mood of an alien ocean. Subnautica 2 lets you explore alone or with up to three friends, turning the creature you just spotted into something the whole group can become fascinated by, preferably from a sensible distance. Scanning life, collecting materials and improving the base give those discoveries a practical purpose, with the Tadpole submersible helping carry the expedition beyond the reassuring shallows.
There is an important difference from picking up a finished sequel: Subnautica 2 is currently in Early Access, with its world and narrative still being expanded. Expect unfinished elements and potential performance issues alongside the discoveries already available. Below Zero is the clearer choice for a complete solo adventure; this is the place to consider when exploring a developing ocean together is part of the attraction.
The machines around your base in The Planet Crafter are working on a rather bigger project than keeping the lights on. Producing heat, oxygen and pressure gradually changes a barren planet, until the view outside begins reflecting the work you have put into it. An expedition for another mineral becomes a contribution to that transformation, so even a familiar trip can bring you closer to seeing something new when you get home.
Wrecks and ruins give the resource gathering mysteries of its own, with better equipment helping you venture further from the first shelter. There is no combat, which leaves the environment and the work of staying alive to supply the pressure. It is a lovely direction after Subnautica when you enjoyed becoming comfortable somewhere initially hostile and would quite like the planet to appreciate the effort.
Raft begins with so little beneath your feet that an extra piece of flooring can feel like a serious improvement in living standards. Catching passing debris and scavenging around islands gradually turns that precarious platform into a home, complete with the equipment needed to keep its inhabitants fed and its voyage moving. The shark taking an interest in the foundations supplies a fairly persuasive reason to keep the repairs up to date.
Navigation eventually brings the journey to places where the remains of civilisation have a story to tell, giving you destinations beyond the next useful patch of floating rubbish. Exploring them can supply both an answer and something the raft needs, so coming home becomes the beginning of preparations for another departure. Friends can share the work, although agreeing how much of the raft should become a kitchen is another matter.
A backyard becomes an excellent alien world once a blade of grass is taller than you are. Grounded uses that change of scale to turn ordinary landmarks into expeditions, with insects occupying the routes between your shelter and whatever you hope to investigate next. Making better armour and weapons is partly about surviving those encounters and partly about finally reaching the place you have been looking at from a safe distance.
The question of how you became this small gives the exploring a story to follow, much as Subnautica's mystery keeps pulling you past the next upgrade. You can tackle it alone or with friends, and the home you construct remains part of the adventure because the yard's creatures can come looking for trouble there too. The result has the delightful contradiction of feeling like a long way from home while barely leaving the garden.
Your airship in Forever Skies is the sort of home improvement project that can actually take you somewhere. Expanding its workshop and laboratory changes what you can attempt in the ruined Earth below, while scavenging abandoned towers supplies both the materials and the clues that make the next departure worthwhile. Having the base travel with you keeps the preparations close to the discoveries they are meant to support.
Science supplies the connection between the two, as scanning lost technology and researching equipment help you understand how to survive a world transformed by toxic dust. Venturing beneath it takes that understanding into stranger territory, with the search for a cure giving the journey its longer purpose. The custom survival settings can soften individual pressures, so the airship can become a comfortable research vessel or something you are very relieved to get back aboard.
Space in Breathedge is full of useful wreckage, unfortunate former passengers and things you could probably reach with a slightly better oxygen supply. Scavenging those remains feeds a familiar cycle of making equipment, venturing further and returning with the materials for the next improvement. The surroundings are considerably less sensible than Subnautica's ocean, however, beginning with the immortal chicken accompanying you through the disaster.
That absurdity runs through the story and the tools you build, so the humour is a large part of the commitment. Beneath it sits the satisfaction of turning a dangerous area into somewhere you know how to navigate, with stations and vehicles broadening the ways you can explore. It is an entertaining change of atmosphere when you want the preparation and air supply calculations back, provided a solemn space survival story is not what you had in mind.
An unfamiliar horizon in No Man's Sky can belong to a planet you had no intention of visiting until a few minutes ago. Landing, examining its life and gathering what you need for the ship quickly establishes a small relationship with the place, even when you are already wondering what is waiting around another star. Equipment and base building give those discoveries somewhere to go beyond the collection of names in your records.
That enormous freedom changes the rhythm after Subnautica's more concentrated ocean mystery. A trading trip, a building project or a promising new world can become the purpose of the evening, with the story sharing space with ambitions you set yourself. The pleasure is in having another departure available whenever you want one, whether you are bringing friends along or leaving a perfectly serviceable home to investigate somewhere nobody asked you to go.
The most valuable thing you bring back from a trip in Outer Wilds is usually an idea. Something in an alien ruin can explain a detail you noticed on another planet, sending you back into the ship with a destination that suddenly matters much more than it did before. The solar system changes as time passes, so learning where to go can become inseparable from understanding when you need to arrive.
There is an oxygen supply to watch, but no base to expand or catalogue of survival equipment to manufacture. The connection to Subnautica is that growing fascination with an unfamiliar world and the people who were there before you. Its time loop gives discoveries room to build on one another, and following your own questions is so central to the adventure that going in with as few answers as possible is well worth the restraint.
The station wagon in Pacific Drive can look rather sorry for itself after an expedition, which makes arriving back at the garage feel like a small victory before you even inspect the supplies. Fixing its panels and fitting better equipment is how you prepare for another journey through the Olympic Exclusion Zone, where strange phenomena make getting out to investigate an ordinary building a decision worth considering carefully.
Keeping the wagon running soon becomes inseparable from getting anywhere interesting, because every new discovery still needs a way home. The supplies you collect have to support repairs, fuel and further upgrades, while clues about the Zone keep the trips from becoming routine errands. There is a mystery to follow beyond the workshop, but first you will probably want to do something about the state of the car.
Which game should you start after Subnautica?
Below Zero is the natural first stop for another complete ocean adventure, while Subnautica 2 offers company if you are comfortable joining an unfinished game. The Planet Crafter puts the emphasis on improving a world, and Raft brings the home you improve along for the journey. For the mystery that keeps you thinking after you stop, Outer Wilds is the strongest change of direction; Pacific Drive gives the work of preparing for another dangerous trip a character of its own.
If you want more places where preparation matters, our survival game recommendations widen the search. If following an unanswered question was what really kept you diving, the story game selection has more adventures worth going into without a walkthrough beside you.