Nightmare Fuel / Subnautica

You know the phrase "Always a bigger fish"? Well, it wants you for lunch. And even worse, there are things that will have it for lunch.

"Father was right. We should never have left this place. We shouldn't have gone so deep. They do not want us down there."

— Bart Torgal

Subnautica may have its share of peaceful creatures, but the oceans are never safe, and neither are your dreams. Chances are, you'll need a new dive suit after escaping these - assuming that you do.

WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.

For content from the Return of the Ancients mod, click here.

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Subnautica

• The Reaper Leviathan, providing the page image. A gigantic eel-shark-THING which resides near the Aurora wreck, and in the Dunes biome. The thing can outrun a Seamoth, and a PRAWN Suit, and can even use claw-like appendages ATTACHED TO ITS FACE to severely damage the two. Don't think you can escape it with a Seaglide either. It uses its claw-like appendages to swallow you whole for a One-Hit Kill. It can even kill Reefbacks, the second largest nonhostile creature in the game, and literally tear them to pieces. The worst part? It's not even the largest carnivore in the game! Then there's its roar. Before the Oculus update in April 2016, the Reaper's roar, and only its roar, had a special sound effect in which it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. Now, their roars fade with distance and is positional, which actually increases the fear factor, because when you hear one roaring up close, it may already be too late. And while the Reaper does have bioluminescence, it's so subtle◊ that you can barely notice it. Meaning the gigantic Leviathan can sneak up on you very easily. The databank states that the Reaper's roar functions as a form of echolocation similar to sperm whales. In other words, If you can hear it, the Reaper will know you're near.
  • Worse still, this is not a bluff to scare players. This is reflected in-game. If you can hear a reaper's roar, it will slowly start to home in on you. If you use something that makes a lot of noise, such as a seamoth or a cyclops, it will hear it and find you much FASTER!
• The Inactive Lava Zone. Accessible by several pits and entrances in the game world, many which you need to get to through maze-like tunnels since these pits aren't directly accessible from the surface. So deep that both the Cyclops and the PRAWN Suit need depth upgrades just to get there, while the Seamoth can't access it at all. Once you are able to reach it... is a place that "cave system" is an inadequate name for. It goes deeper than 1500 meters, its "caves" are several hundred meters across, are mostly made of lava hardened into bizarre formations and have multiple running rivers of lava.
  • It's likely unintentional on the developers' part, but there are places along the wall in the zone's central chamber where the ambient light just cuts out as though you've gone to the void. You're picking your way along the side of the chamber, maybe looking for resources, maybe trying to avoid any attention from the local wildlife, when the ambient light around you suddenly turns from a dull volcanic red to nearly pitch black and the already menacing volcano ambiance goes dead silent. It's especially nerve-wracking here since there's a Sea Dragon on the prowl. Fortunately, you only have to move a short distance to clear it up.
• The Sand Shark. Nowhere close to the Reaper in size, but definitely no pushover. These creatures' signature ability is to burrow under the sand of the Grassy Plateaus. While they do leave a cloud of sand when they do, giving away their position, the thing will pop up and try to bite you with probably More Teeth than the Osmond Family.
• The kelp forests. Large collections of Creepvines that surround the safe shallows, if you go there the screen gets a dark green tint and your visibility lowers - which makes it difficult to see the Stalkers that inhabit the forests - and these forests need to be visited a lot early on when the player is more vulnerable to the Stalkers.
• Thought the Reapers were terrifying? Try the Sea Dragon Leviathan, another, even more malevolent creature, so dangerous that the developers decided to only add three to the map. It is much bigger than the Reaper and possesses an even greater unprovoked hostility. Commence pants-soiling. It was added in the Dangerous Creatures update, and spawns in the Inactive Lava Zone.
  • The roars.
    • Even more terrifying is being in Lost River and hearing one of them roaring below you. You've evaded the Warpers, the Crabsquids, and now the Ghost Leviathans. Now what the hell is that?
  • Ever wonder what is like to be Eaten Alive by a giant monster in first person? The Sea Dragon kills you by doing just that.
  • It can even spit a massive fireball at things, including what amounts to a fireball gatling gun.
  • If you search around the Lava Zones, you can see the remains of Reaper Leviathans that they ate. When a Reaper can be killed and eaten by it, you know it's bad.
    • The PDA also notes that the Reapers are incapable of surviving the extreme temperatures of the Lava Zones, meaning that the Sea Dragons would have to travel outside their home territory to hunt, dragging their prey into the volcanic territory where the unfortunate creatures were literally boiled to death.
  • Even worse, the three Sea Dragons we encounter are revealed to act as a Big Bad Duumvirate of sorts, being (inadvertently) responsible for spreading the Kharaa bacterium across the planet, and only the enzymes of the Sea Emperor Leviathan can cure it.
• The Sea Emperor Leviathan. The thing has an uncanny resemblance to something straight out of Pacific Rim, and is just as big. It is the largest creature in the game, even larger than the Sea Dragon Leviathan. However, it's only a scare at first sight. It turns out it's trapped in an abandoned research facility, built by the Precursors where it was forced to breed by the Precursors (which didn't work, though it was for a good reason, actually), and is completely harmless.
  • It turns out that the Sea Emperor is the Last of Its Kind. It, unlike the others of its species, had a mutated enzyme in its stomach that allowed it to survive the infection (see below) that killed the rest of them, and was being studied to see how to make more of the enzyme. Unfortunately, the infection got the researchers before they were even close to finishing. Makes you wonder what really makes the antagonists tick...
  • In the same laboratory area, you will discover a display case containing the dissected body of a juvenile Sea Emperor.
  • Even knowing it's the game's Big Good doesn't make it completely safe. As a new feature of the Silent Running update, the first time you encounter it is via a telepathic projection half an hour after trying to disable the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. When it shows up, all you can make out is a freakish smear of darkness in your vision occupied by a very alien face, and a voice that echoes in your mind asking "What are you?". It comes out of nowhere and can be very unsettling even for players who were testing early release, nevermind new players who will have no idea what is going on.
• Crab Snakes are giant, sea snake-like creatures that are the only predators in the Jelly Shroom Caves. They are a slightly faint red and have a mouth that can only be described as a combination of a Xenomorph and a spider. They hide in the mushrooms and love to jump out of them and grab you, which is almost exactly like the aforementioned Reaper above, while you're exploring this cool new area.
• Crashfish, suicide bomber fish^*Think Creepers from Minecraft that hide in sulfur plants growing in the caves. The fish themselves have a chilling chuckle that they make before they launch and the fact that they look like marine Cacodemons doesn't help. They're like murderous red pufferfish, and yes, they swim faster than you and will put a hole in your vessels. They can one-hit your seamoth submersible, with the only other creature able to do that is the Reaper.
• Ampeels are giant electric eels with spines that act as Tesla coils, not very threatening at first, as they are slow, and can easily be fled. However, if you are stupid enough to try and kill one then you'll realize that they are nigh impossible to kill.
• The inside of the Aurora is almost completely broken, and the ship is infested with cave crawlers. Cave Crawlers are basically aquatic Head Crabs which makes it even worse that they have high numbers and love to hide in shallow water throughout the ship. In addition the ship itself is incredibly irradiated because of the reactors leaking. When you try to fix them, you'll find that the water in the reactor room, which you need to go into to fix the reactor and stop the radiation, is also infested with Bleeders which makes the underwater segments of the repair a mad dash to fix everything before the swarm catches up to you. Not to mention the Reaper Leviathans guarding the rear. The PDA will give you warning messages that it's unadvised to explore the wreckage. It will state that the structural integrity is unknown, that 87% of habitable areas were rendered uninhabitable during the crash, and that human remains have been detected in the nearby cave crawlers' digestive systems! Not to mention that the whole thing is shaking like it's about to collapse any second while you're entering its ruins.
• Biters are basically salt water piranhas. They're small enough that it's hard to tell what's attacking you and they come in swarms. They also at first seem like normal fish, potentially making their first attack on you a Jump Scare. Their cousins the Blighters do the same thing in the Blood Kelp areas.
• Bleeders are alien leeches that clamp onto your arm with a screech, and suck out the nutrients in your blood. The worst part? Half of the water in the Aurora is infested with these parasites, including the flooded drive core room of the Aurora.
  • Bleeders: because leeches weren't yet creepy enough without tentacles...
  • On the other hand, you'd be forgiven for seeing them as penis-shaped Metroids.
• The Blood Kelp Biome is your classic deep sea horror show. The first thing you'll see are the blood kelp and blood root plants: pale, white seaweed/knotted roots with blood oil pustules oozing from them. Inhabiting this haunting reef are the equally haunting deep-sea relatives of regular creatures: Spinefish (skelet-like Hoopfish, thankfully harmless), Blood Crawlers (long-legged, bone white Cave Crawlers, with that sound like screaming ghouls), Blighters (zombie-resembling Biters that make rasping sounds), and the occasional regular but no less dangerous, Ampeel.
  • The ominous message your PDA gives you when entering this biome for the first time:
    PDA: This ecological biome matches 7 of the 9 preconditions for stimulating terror in humans.
  • Guess what, it was updated! How wonderful. Now there are TWO Blood Kelp Biomes around the map. The first, the one mentioned above, is relatively the same. The second one, however, has a couple of new friends in it. First of all, there are Ampeels everywhere making it hard to even move around. Secondly, one of the long awaited concept art creatures are finally here. Which one? Why the Crabsquid of course! And now it has an even more terrifying inhabitant: one of the adult Ghost Leviathans.
• Speaking of the Crabsquid, its design alone could send some chills down your spine, particularly if you're an arachnophobe. Imagine a giant squid, now take away its tentacles and make the whole thing smaller. Now give it long dangly, segmented crab legs and claws. Now move both of the eyes the the front of its head and give it two more, all of which are black. Then encase the squids mantle in a bubble. Make it sound like an underwater MUTO and give it an EMP blast (which disables ALL electronics, including your submarine), make it so it's always hungry, and now you have a Crabsquid.
  • The Crabsquid around the Degasi Seabase in the Deep Grand Reef is especially terrifying. Why? Because even if you manage to slip in without getting attacked, all the glass windows inside the decomposing structure will give you a lovely view of the Crabsquid staring in at/near you the whole time, as if waiting for you to leave.
• Similar to the Blood Kelp Zone, Grand Reef is one of the other unnerving biomes above ground. The geographical layout is pretty vertigo inducing. If you enter it from the biomes neighboring it from the north-east, you'll be met with a steep drop. The upper part of the biome is vertically oriented with only some cliff shelves to support the bizzare glowing Anchor Pods, creating the feeling that it keeps going down forever. It doesn't help that it's a very murky biome even during daytime with only the dim illumination of the Anchor Pods and Membrane trees to light your way. Fauna is pretty sparse in Grand Reef with the lack of life adding to the creepiness. Aside from the occasional Spadefish, Reginald, or Sea Treader, the creatures you find are ones you don't want to find. There are patrolling Warpers in the upper recesses and Crabsquids lurking in the deepest parts, both very threatening to players even inside vehicles. To top it off, there are not one but two adult Ghost Leviathans living in this biome who can be very hard to see from a distance due to the murk and uneven landscape. All to make it more surprising for you when you run into one.
• The Lost River contains a gigantic skeleton, nicknamed by fans as the Lost Leviathan. Not only is it terrifying in and of itself, but the skull is also so massive it could swallow a Cyclops whole, dwarfing even the Emperor and Sea Dragon. The thought of something that gigantic swimming around is horrifying, even if we assume it's long extinct. According to the PDA what is shown isn't even the whole length of the creature. If the PDA is to be believed then the Gargantuan Leviathan clocks in at 1100 to 1300 meters (about .8 of a mile) long. For reference, that's about 1.5 Burj Khalifa's, the current record holder of the world's tallest building, stacked on top of the other.
  • It becomes more horrifying as it's been confirmed that not even the planet's sapient race know what it is. Answering that question was the secondary objective of their base in the Lost River before the Sea Dragon Leviathan destroyed it and caused a Class 1 Apocalypse How with The Plague for the planet's fauna.
  • The entire Lost River is a creepy place. The ambient light is a pale green, there are pools and rivers and lakes of acidic brine on the ground, one area is home to dozens of bones and skeletons if creatures that got lost in the caves and died, another has a very large and beautiful but forlorn tree with lots of Ghost Rays swimming around it, and the largest chamber has the fossilized kaiju skeleton. Plus the creatures that do live there are eerie translucent/glowing creatures that are more swimming skeletons and wraiths than animals, and now there are three juvenile Ghost Leviathans patrolling the Lost River Forest, the Gargantuan Leviathan chamber, and the massive tunnel leading from the Research Lab to the Bulb Zone biome.
• Eventually, some creatures will spawn with an "infection". It's killed 143 billion specimens thus far.
  • It's so severe to the point where the game's perceived antagonists, a sapient race known as the Precursors, were forced to prevent ships from leaving or entering the planet, shooting down passerby (including the Aurora and Degasi) as a result. They've also endorsed genocide of the planet's fauna to clear out the virus, employing the Warpers, AKA the Self-Warping Quarantine Enforcer Units, a species of humanoid teleporting creatures, to automate this. Once again, this plunges the Precursors deep into Well-Intentioned Extremist territory...
  • Oh, and the player has it. They have to find the cure before they can even hope to begin building the rocket that will let them get off the planet, since the door to the Ground-to-Air Weapon System's controls won't open to infected. You won't die from it, but it's a major roadblock.
  • The new infection details from the Infected update, specifically of the player's hands upon discovering their infection has worsened is particularly horrifying. It's both the high-detailed sickly glowing-green boils and the disturbing writhing hand-animations are what does it for the horror-factor.
  • What's even worse is how the infected creatures look. They're covered in glowing cysts all across their body, which looks a bit odd on some creatures until you realize that it means they have cysts on their eyes and inside their mouths. That's not even going into the fact that Reaper and Sea Dragon Leviathans can get it. The player gets this effect on them as well once they find out they have it.
• The Mesmer species. Starfish Aliens that look like some kind of stalkless oceanic flower and float around the deep but bright Bulb zones and do some strange things to the player. They have mind control abilities, to be specific, and when in action they are terrifying. Your faithful PDA's usually comforting, if a little synthetic, voice will pipe up and begin telling you to look directly at the Mesmer while you find yourself drawn towards it, implying that either the Mesmer somehow both knows what your PDA is and how to control it, or it's making you hallucinate your PDA's voice in order to get closer. The game's encyclopedia will outright say it makes prey ignore the fight-or-flight response, but until that point you just can't tell.
  • Also it's worth pointing out that while under the Mesmer's effects, your vision becomes distorted as it commands your attention; and worse yet, as it makes it difficult to look away (your normal movement speed is rapidly reduced while mesmerized). It's an interesting effect on its own, but if you lose control in an area with hazardous creatures attacking you, or are hit by it while in a cave system with oxygen running out, the little Mesmer can become very deadly.
• The Warpers are easily one of the creepiest creatures yet. They spawn around the Precursor bases and deeper Degasi bases, and if you get close they'll either melee attack you or fire a teleportation sphere that hurts you and sends you away a fair distance. NEXT TO THEM. And then they stab you for half health. They can warp you out of your vehicles with it, as well. If you try to attack them they'll teleport away from the area completely, then teleport back after a little bit. But the spookiest thing is that they will stalk and follow you as long as you're in the area.
  • Also there's the fact that they CAN'T BE KILLED.
  • They were designed to kill infected fauna, including you, with ease. And they're damned efficient at their job. You can even watch them react to infected fauna the same way they do to you, firing off a warp bubble that brings the fauna to them for a stab.
  • With more recent updates, they make new sounds: an electronic noise as they warp in, and harsh-sounding transmissions to each other as they hunt down the remaining Aurora survivors, which your radio intercepts long after the fact. It doesn't take long before you are the only target not accounted for.
    "▀▖┗▛Nine new biological subjects designated. Mode ▄▖▜▚┣: hunting/analyzing. Sharing subject locations with other agents."
    "Subject 11783 destroyed. Mode: patrol. New targets unaccounted for: 1."
  • After you enter the Lost River, you get another message over the radio. It's nothing but garbled static and the--untranslated--alien language.
  • Oh yeah, one minor detail: the Warper can summon backup. If you prove difficult to get, then they'll summon a predator from the area. So dodge too many warping orbs in, say, the Blood Kelp biome, and sooner or later, you'll have a swarm of hungry Blighters ready to tear into you, or a fully charged Ampeel all too willing to light up your world.
• While Reefback Leviathans are completely harmless and docile, the first time you spot one floating in open water will surely be cause for shock. Its massive scale, leafy, island-esque exoskeleton, weird fungus-like underbelly, and tentacles trailing behind make it look much less like an alien fish and more like an interdimensional being.
• After a certain point the radio receiver will begin picking up an incoming signal from the Sunbeam, a ship in the area responding to the SOS. Of course this kind of horror is two fold with the first being. The captain of the Sunbeam initially sending an annoyed message asking if the Aurora still needs assistance and openly stating that their owner company is well known for sending frivolous SOS signals. Even going so far as to imply that he won't actually come help without a reply when you have no way to send one. But it gets much worse when he detects the debris field from the Aurora being shot down and realizes how bad this could be. On the one hand he struggles to apologize for his insensitivity earlier but saying he didn't know (while in the background talking with someone about how they're a "six seater" that doesn't really have anything to handle this.) On the other you still can't send out a signal and he's going to arrive in orbit in a weeks' time, while you likely can't shut down the giant alien gun waiting to blast whatever comes through the atmosphere to cinders. Imagine the horror of knowing exactly what's going to happen and being unable to do anything about it. Subverted if you scramble to actually get the gun disabled before the Sunbeam arrives, the script marches on as the Sunbeam simply radios that they can't find a suitable landing site with all the debris around, and will just leave and radio your position to the authorities.
  • For first-time players who haven't seen any spoilers, it's very easy to think that you're actually going to be rescued by the Sunbeam. The Captain's message tells you to head to an island which is the only viable landing area. Once you arrive and at the appointed time, you hear that the ship is incoming and you look up to the sky in hope. Suddenly, the tower you thought was just a tower starts moving and pointing toward the sky. The Captain can see what's happening but is locked into descent. You see the Sunbeam descending, followed by the "tower" tracking towards it and blasting it out of the sky with a giant laser beam. It's definitely a horrifying sight and you quickly realize that you're truly alone now.
• Some players find the Gigantic Moon in the sky unsettling to look at. It's large enough to take up a majority of standard screens, giving the impression that it's very close to the planet. Multiple players have expressed that it feels like it may fall into 4546B.
• The Ghost Leviathan happens to be at least a little more terrifying than its concept art. That's a first. Here's the model with the texture, and here's◊ the concept art for comparison.
  • What's really scary is that the Ghost Leviathan isn't exclusively contained to the Lost River. The ones in the River are just youngsters, though still a little larger than the Reaper Leviathan. Turns out that the Giant Cove Tree is the location where the Ghost Leviathan lays its eggs, which are what the things in the Tree's branches are. As they grow they leave the Cove into the River system and from there they migrate into the world (there's an adult Ghost in the Grand Reef and one in the Northern Blood Kelp Forest, both by the Lost River entrances, and another can be found at the border of the Grand Reef and the Sea Treader's Path). And from there they go into the Crater Edge to reach their full size.
  • The ghastly, dreadful cherry on top of the panic cake? The Ghost Leviathan is a filter feeder. It feeds on microscopic lifeforms floating around the Crater. It doesn't attack you because it's hungry. It attacks you because it's defending its territory. This only applies to the adults in the Crater Edge, though, the younger adults and juveniles in the Crater are carnivores and consume everything they can to fuel their growth, and that will include you if you're not careful.
  • Then comes its cries... If the Sea Dragon embodies "terror" with its animalistic roars, safe to say that the Ghost Leviathan is "horror" with its eerily human-like screams. The sounds for the Ghost Leviathan have been updated and it's even WORSE. Apparently, according to the devs, it was created using the sounds of actual people screaming.
• The Crater Edge itself qualifies. The PDA report on the area states that it can only support two kinds of life; microscopic plankton, and Leviathans. It's not wrong... the only life you will encounter out there are the aforementioned Ghost Leviathans (yes, plural), and they spawn with enough frequency that you're likely to be dealing with three at once if you make it any appreciable distance into the biome itself. Before any of them come for you, though, you're just greeted by miles and miles of open ocean, with the music abruptly cutting out into absolute silence, and a sheer drop that leads to depths which will crush your vehicles like eggs under a sledgehammer.
  • The sight of a Ghost Leviathan appearing out of the endless void of the open ocean is a chilling one, regardless of the time of day. Their banshee-like screams being one of the few things you'll hear in that environment does not help.
  • This is what it looks like on the Crater Edge's seabed, prior to it's later removal. Truly a five-star resort, no?
    • Fun fact: this seabed is three thousand meters below sea level. There is literally no way to reach the bottom without Creative Mode or building a very long base shaft down into the depths, all while the Ghost Leviathans are attacking you. Oh, and even this deep seabed didn't last forever, eventually giving way to a true void of empty water that is eight thousand meters deep.
  • Also out in the Edge, some players have found a faint cry coming from somewhere out there. If it belongs to a creature, nothing in game makes that sound.
• The music that plays when you get a fire on the Cyclops. The music is an intense EDM beat and the lighting in the sub turns red as sirens blare and warning signals pop up on the main hub possibly while your sub turns into a raging inferno, WHILE BEING ATTACKED! The music's title? "Abandon Ship". At least it's a catchy beat though.
• The Architects' Doomsday Device. Small enough for a person to hold in their hands, and packing enough destructive force to wipe out a solar system. The Precursors were determined to keep the infection from spreading after it's hundred-billions-strong body count.
• Passing through the shallows over areas where the ocean is 500+ meters deep can be this as Nothing Is Scarier comes into play. Nothing is visible below the player's feet but inky depths full of who knows what.
• If one pays attention, the setting portrays Alterran society to be merciless: a hyper-capitalistic, grade A Cyberpunk dystopia where human decency is generally dead, charity is looked down upon as obsolete, Megacorps rule over their employees like nation states without the social obligations of the latter, and even the most private and intimate matters like interpersonal relationships are treated as nothing more than business contracts.
  • That last part in particular can send chills down the spine of anyone with even a mildly romantic side. As multiple PDA entries point out, faithful relationships are actively discouraged because staying true to one single partner is treated the same as monopolizing what you have to "offer" your "business partner". If you're even slightly unhappy with your relationship, you're expected to "reevaluate your business model", AKA unilaterally change or outright terminate your relationship contract and move on to the next one instead of working things out.

Subnautica: Below Zero

• The game reveals that the Sunbeam being blown up was the canon story. It's "missing" and Alterra aren't revealing what they know.
• Below Zero doesn't bring back any leviathans from the first game, but it does introduce all new monstrosities to terrorize you.
  • The Squidshark is technically too small to be considered a leviathan, but they're still extremely dangerous and can One-Hit Kill you if they grab you at low health. They resemble Great White Sharks with the jaws that split open like the maw of a giant squid, but with significantly more teeth.
    • From a distance, they also resemble the benign Glow Whales, and they often frequent the same biomes.
    • Special note must be made of the Deep Twisty Bridges, a cave system right next to your starter biome. The entrance is a crack at the bottom of a sea trench, too narrow to easily get a Seatruck through, while a Prawn Suit is going to have a lot of difficulty getting out. The caves are nearly lightless and filled with more twisting coral, adding a great deal of claustrophobia... but there's also a pair of Squidsharks down there. Exploring the area for Seatruck fragments and resources is essentially Alone with the Psycho in aquatic form, listening to the Squidsharks gurgling and growling to themselves like alligators as they lazily patrol the cavern, until they spot you and start roaring and snapping their jaws as they chase you.
  • The Chelicerate is a blood-red armor-plated leviathan whose jaws split into four huge, bony mandibles with backward facing teeth. Their bites do huge damage and, if they catch you at < 80% health, you get to witness yourself get Swallowed Whole. They're also quite quick and can easily sneak up on you, despite their size.
  • In the deepest depths of the ocean caverns lurk the Shadow Leviathans. They possess bony legs that they use to grab you and force into their abdomen to be digested alive, and if you're caught outside a vehicle with < 75% health you're instantly eaten. Barring their glowing blue bellies and numerous red eyes they are mostly black, making them difficult to spot in the darkness until it's almost too late.
    • And don't think you can slip away either: they don't attack any other fauna in their feeding territory. Once they see you, they won't stop coming after you until you find a safe refuge in a fissure or behind something sturdy, and even then they won't return to their patrol path for quite a while. Better hope you've got enough air left to wait it out...
    • The way the soundtrack slows to a halt when they're nearby really hammers home the fact that you're in imminent danger of being attacked by something horrifying.
  • You thought the Reapers from the first game were bad? Below Zero introduces the Ice Worms, giant carnivorous worms that burrow through the ice and can ambush you anywhere! The worst part is that this happens out of the water, so land is no longer safe!
  • At least you can kill a Reaper with enough firepower. The Ice Worm isn't an entity you can fight with the Prawn Suit or whatever weapons you can get from mods. It's a scripted event, not a creature, and this makes it invincible.
  • The Frozen Leviathan is an odd but unsettling example; it's completely harmless in-game and long-dead to boot but has an enormous toothy maw visible just behind the ice. There's at least one character that's convinced it's still alive somehow and, worryingly, the ambient soundtrack in the cave has a periodic low, distant rushing sound - somewhere between distant roars and heavy breathing.
• Below Zero's death animations are far more brutal than in the first game. In the first, the most you get is a shot of a Leviathan grabbing you and Ryley giving a quick yelp before the scene cuts to black. In Below Zero, when one grabs you, you get to watch yourself being Swallowed Whole in the first person while Robin struggles and screams.
• The Thermal Spires aren't particularly dangerous, but they're dark, ominous, and possesses bleak music. They're patrolled by the Cryptosuches, who resemble a mix between a crocodile, a lobster, and a salamander, and will attack you if they see you.
• The Lily Paddler, like the Mesmer, can hypnotize the player. The good news is that it's not aggressive and won't attack you directly. The bad news is, its Interface Screw is far more deadly and disorienting: the UI lies to you about your location relative to your vehicles, your depth and color perception are way off, and the whole time Robin is gasping and groaning like she's been poisoned. If this happens to you when you're low on oxygen and far from the surface, it's very easy to get lost and drown.
• You're wandering through the frozen ice wastelands, slowly freezing to death under the awful blizzard, when thankfully you manage to find a cave to take shelter in. Hooray, your life is saved! Until you wander further in and hear breathing, followed by a roar, followed by getting crushed under a mass of furry white muscle. Congratulations, you just got attacked by a Snow Stalker, a polar bear-esque land mammal who hang out on the tundra above the water. Ice Worms aren't the only danger that awaits you on dry land.
  • Also, they are not the apex predators of the arctic. In fact, they are the common prey of the Ice Worms. And the way they feed is terrifying. First, they emerge and grab the Snow Stalker with their jaws, flinging them into the air, only so they can land in their mouth and be Swallowed Whole.
• Spikey Traps, as the name implies, are dangerous traps you can fall victim to. They line the bottom of trenches and caves and resemble plants. But if you get too close, it'll whip a tentacle at you and try to pull you into its mouth to be devoured. Be sure to keep a close eye on the cave floors. Oh, and they are treated as mechanical setpieces just like the Ice Worm, so you can't even kill them.
• Much like the Crater Edge of the previous game, the boundaries of the game world is appropriately called the World Edge, which is a whole lot of empty open ocean, and nobody's found a floor to it yet. Venture into it and you'll be hounded by Void Chelicerates, gigantic ghostly white versions of the already-deadly Chelicerates. And like before, you'll be pursued by up to three of them until you die or leave.
• One of the usually innocuous Alterra PDA logs contains some unexpectedly disturbing information further suggesting that the Subnautica universe is not a nice place to live: pressure-testing on the Control Room habitat module you can build in-game was performed using prototypes containing live test subjects, with lethal results. Said victims willingly did this, for the hazard pay. Did Ryley have to go through something like that to clear his debts?..
  • Moreover, there's literally no reason people have to be doing this, as sensors could do a perfectly adequate job by themselves, and it more or less seems like Alterra does it For the Evulz, perhaps as a way to 'help' people pay debts. After all, if the debtor dies, they'll go after their family next.
  • Speaking of Alterra PDA logs, those featuring Emmanuel - former head of Sector Zero HR - have a definite "soft-spoken sociopath" vibe to them. Just hearing about how this guy thought his not being there for his daughter's recital was good for her confidence will creep you out.
• While the Eye Jellies are harmless save a weak shock if you get too close, they're just... unnerving. They drift around, not really doing anything. They don't react to any stimuli, and you can't feed or otherwise interact with them. They're just there. It doesn't help that their single eye is eerily similar to a human eye, and their native biome is devoid of anything bigger than themselves.
• Brinewings, though quite small for predators, can attack from a distance with their subzero saline spray. Granted, getting hit only results in temporary Harmless Freezing ... but given that they're mostly encountered early on when your air reserve is minimal, getting locked in ice can cost you time and, if it nails you as you're desperately racing for an oxygen-refill, life.
• According to the PDAs, the Frozen Leviathan did not live on land; it seems to have only come on land to sleep and fell through the ice to its death. Either it was so cold it instantly froze to death or the impact killed it. Either way, imagine how terrified it must have been having tumbled through the ice.

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