Thoughts and a conversation with designer Nikhil Murthy about blank tablets and amusement parks

Image credit: Krafton / Rock Paper Shotgun

Moderate spoilers for Subnautica 2 's incomplete early access storyline follow.

When I play Subnautica 2, I often feel as though I am swimming in two worlds simultaneously. On the one hand, there's the world that goes on without me, the world of wonky indigenous beings living out their lives, careless of my presence: shoals of unharvestable fish swizzing past like dropped fireworks, growth cycles half-deciphered in flooded laboratories, crested hammerheads idly circling their territories.…