Subnautica Below Zero: Beginner’s Guide – 5 Tips and Tricks

by Mike Alexander / Game Guides, General Guides, Popular Posts, Tips & Tricks / 19 Nov 2023

Survival games have exploded in popularity in recent years. With everything from ARK: Survival Evolved to Rust boasting huge player numbers and revenues year after year. With new games being released into the genre all the time, the founders of the genre have had to find ways to expand their core gameplay and keep their players invested when the number of options is continually increasing. This is what led to the development of Subnautica: Below Zero. This frosty expansion to the classic deep-sea survival title adds tons of new gameplay, new environments, and new threats for you to deal with.

If you never got to play Subnautica before Below Zero was released, then you might be overwhelmed with all of the new mechanics and systems. If you’re diving into Subnautica for the first time with Subnautica: Below Zero, then I have some guidance for you in this Subnatuica: Below Zero Beginner’s Guide. These Top 5 Tips should help you set out on the right foot and prepare you to face the icy dangers of Below Zero. If you’re ready to brave the cold, put on something warm, and let’s get started!

Heal Yourself

Between the treacherous deep seas, the icy tundras, and all of the creatures that inhabit both places, you will inevitably take some damage. Whether that be by falling from a height, getting burnt, or being attacked. The good news is that there are several ways to regain your health after one of these things happen. Your most obvious option will be the First Aid Kit. These can be found in your scavenging or crafted at the fabricator in your base, and they heal you for +50 hp. There are also the helpful Shrub Nuts which give you +10 hp, +15 food, and +5 h20. If you do nothing and manage to stay out of trouble, your health will regenerate slowly on its own.

Know Your Biomes

Subnautica: Below Zero has many different biomes that exist both above and below the water. These aren’t just aesthetic changes, each biome has its own resources and materials which you will need to craft your equipment and items. As you play the game, you’ll want to make an effort to remember what materials come from where so that you don’t waste your time looking for a specific thing down the road later on.

Keep Hunger at Bay

As a survival game, you’ll have to closely monitor your hunger in Subnautica: Below Zero. Your hunger meter is replenished with food (obviously) but there are some important notes to make about the food you eat. You can cook food items at your base, and cooking them will increase the number of points they replenish. However, cooked food can go bad pretty quickly. If you don’t eat the food right away, it’ll deteriorate until it becomes rotten, at which point eating it will take away points from you. You can prevent this by storing food in a fridge, which will keep it fresh indefinitely.

Keep Important Items Close

In your adventures, there will be certain items and recipes that you’ll constantly be searching for. If you want to keep checking what you need the tedious way, you can open up your inventory and hover over the thing you want to craft to see what you have and what you still need. But, if you want to be an efficient Subnautica: Below Zero player, you can pin those recipes to the side of your screen for constant easy reference. All you need to do is right-click what you’re working on in your inventory, and it will be pinned. Now everything you need is visible at a glance, and no need to keep opening your inventory!

Maintain Your Oxygen Levels

Since you’ll be underwater quite a bit, and you’re playing a human character, oxygen is a commodity you’ll need to constantly top up on. If you want to stay underwater a little longer, you can craft a spare tank that you can switch to when your main tank gets low. There are also a bunch of different ways you can replenish your oxygen while underwater, so you can stay there longer. For instance, there are Bladderfish that you can catch basically everywhere, which will replenish your oxygen by +15 points. There are also Oxygen Plants that restore +30, Titan Holefish which restore +15, and Ice Bubbles that produce a constant stream of air bubbles to fill up your oxygen completely if you wait long enough.

Subnautica: Below Zero Xbox Series X and Series S Cheats

Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.
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