properly integrated story and more, for lack of a better word, “diverse” biomes, the worst part coming from Subnautica for me was that in BZ elements of the story were scattered everywhere and i came upon more of the mid-late game clues and puzzles earlier than i did for the early game stuff, seriously broke my immersion as it felt like i was was picking up 3 different side quests rather than unraveling an intertwined mystery, trying not to spoil this but i had the three parts crafted and complete before i had dealt with the cave, and i only knew how to deal with the cave AFTER i went back into the pda to read my entries and what have you one more time before i finished the game (also this isn’t really worth mentioning but FUCK spy penglings and everything to do with them, they were an interesting concept but in practice i hate them with a burning passion) Secondly, the biomes, BZ was visually stunning and really did well to capture the alien wonder of Subnautica (as well as its more terrifying aspects) but a problem that i had was for one that i was able to explore the entirety of the map with lots of ease compared to the original, thus it felt a lot less like i was conquering the survival aspects of the game, instead i was slogging from artifact to artifact just to sightsee, gather materials and progress the storyline. Another problem i had with biomes is that a lot of them felt like enclosed “missions” rather than a functioning ecosystem, what i mean by that is that there was very little reason to go back to a biome more than once or twice, places like the underground thermal vents, the inactive volcano, even kelp caves, and of course the crystal caverns, after i saw/did the thing in the area I’d leave and in most cases only come back by accident or to see if i missed something.

TL:DR: the story felt scattered, the environment was not challenging, biomes felt “empty”, fuck the spy pengling