Best Of

Even more ideas for new creatures

Blobsquid
A small predator reminiscent of a tentacled semi-amorphous translucent purple blob with a single central eye, it envelops its Prey like an amoeba and secretes a poisonous paralytic slime that serves to paralyze it’s prey while it consumes it. This could serve to replace the bleeders from the first game wrapping around your arm until you knife them off, and providing a poison effect similar to the droopingstingers from the first game with an added slowing effect to your swimming that wears off over time, I think these would suit the deep purple vents biome.

Crystal back snail
Based on the lronfoot snail these mollusks could crawl around in the crystal caves and be a food source for the shadow leviathan or the player depending on their size, and though they likely wouldn’t affect the player much they would add some much needed biodiversity to the crystal caverns

Treasure clam
A large predatory clam species that appears harmless at first that extends an arm (like an angler fish) from its mouth(?) That holds a shiny piece of metal or other luminous substance in order to attract prey before it closes on them trapping them within where they are slowly digested. This creature could be escapable if you hit it with the knife a few times and if you freeze it with the stasis rifle you could collect its treasure without worrying about getting caught. I’m thinking tree spires or cave flowers biome for this one

Drill worm
A small armored creature (aquatic relative of the ice worm?) that feeds on energy similar to the lavalarva by drilling into electronics or other machinery and siphoning their power. Could be anywhere but I think the glacial connection (if expanded into its own biome) would be appropriate since it would be a parasite to the jellyfish (which really need a new name, maybe eyejellys?)

Bubble fish
A large fish species with a unique predation tactic it consumes other species by pulling them into a bubble pocket on its body that it then fills with air in order to suffocate them before expelling them to eat at its leisure. (Imagine a cross between a whale, a puffer fish, and a frog with an inflatable belly made of the gel-stuff from the Titan holefish) the player could be sucked inside and carried around with no fear of drowning before being expelled somewhere random when the fish determines they aren’t suffocating. Could be placed in the east arctic or the west arctic, maybe even the sparse arctic if it was deep enough

Some flora ideas (might not work because of biome constraints)

Coil bush
A unique species of flora these strange plants fire off a stunning blast of electricity when one gets to close in order to incapacitate would be predators. Could be used to incapacitate seatrucks temporarily in certain areas they’d prefer the player go unprotected. Thinking these could be placed int the jungle like tunnels near marge’s base that connect a few biomes.

Crab trees
These terrifying predatory trees use their large Chitinous branches to grasp and tear at unsuspecting prey holding them immobile until they succumb to their injuries, their rotting bodies providing food to the predatory plants. As such their branches and the area around their trunk is often littered with bones, which lures in scavengers starting the cycle anew. These trees could grab the player if they get to close injuring them and holding them until they either manage to struggle free or drown. Might need a new biome for these but if they blended in with the tree spires they could add a bit of danger to that area

Hook trees
A larger and more active version of the spiky trap that would look similar to sea anemone, these large trees would fire hooks that dig into the sea truck and try to consume the whole thing entirely, requiring the use of the afterburner upgrade to escape. Not sure where these would go but I think the idea is interesting, maybe a forest of them near the end of the map to deter people from heading in that direction.

Leviathans

Tempest leviathan
An enormous (vent garden size?) stationary leviathan relative of the spiky trap that fires an electric pulse to stun prey (or the sea truck) before opening its mouth creating a powerful suction force (whirlpool) to draw the paralyzed prey inside. Maybe put this in the east arctic or somewhere that doesn’t have a lot going on, honestly while I like the idea this might be too large/or out of place to put anywhere

Monarch leviathan
A slightly smaller creature than the emperor leviathan that possesses incredible camouflage making it almost invisible. it is a horrifying cousin to the sea emperor species that uses their genus’s unique telepathic nature to prey on the more sentient species of 4546b by reading their minds and creating illusions of their greatest desires to draw them into range before they strike. (Could be used in cutscene like sequence when she thinks she finds her sister?). I like the idea of putting this in the red crystal caves as a kind of ambush predator for when you first find the fabricator base, really playing into the preying mantis aspect (the sea emporer’s arms). After you find it, al-an would help you escape it’s mind control in a cinematic, it would explain why Altera never found the fabricator base and you could have it keep trying to tempt you to it in different ways whenever you went back as an invisible predator that you’d have to avoid it based on the strength of its psychic signals.

Perhaps it’s too late for a lot of these suggestions but I figured I’d put them out there anyway because it felt wrong to keep this bottled up.

Titan Holefish (and Bladderfish):
Here's two problems that I think could be solved with one change. As of now Bladderfish feel like a bit of a noticeable port from the first and somewhat prevent the early game from feeling as unique. As of now there is also an issue with the Titan Holefish being that they don't really have a reason to be here and interactable, with their oxygen-giving properties being overshadowed by Ice Bubbles and Oxygen Plants, making them feel forgettable despite how unique they are.

I propose a solution to both of these problems; Make the Titan Holefish the source of water instead. The gameplay goes from finding a fish and shoving it into the fabricator to avoiding the symbiotes, making for a nice change of pace. With this change swimming up to Titan Holefish allows to harvest a “Titan Holefish Gel” item, with a similar cool down to the current oxygen prompt. This item by itself restores +5 Food and +5 Water (maybe with a +10 to oxygen like Bladderfish), but it can be crafted into the standard Filtered Water item like the Bladderfish did.



Spikey Trap Vehicle Attack:
Spikey Traps should be able to attack vehicles. Not sure why this isn't a thing already. The Spikey Trap would grab a vehicle from afar like they do the player, and pull the vehicle into the mouth for say, 15% damage.


Crashfish:
Crash should just be removed, that's pretty much all there is to this bit. They don't fit at all and feel super forced, and with the removal of crash powder there is no reason for them to be here, especially with how buggy they are.


Fish Schools:
They don't look the best and clutter up the environment more than they enhance it, and often clip through places they shouldn't be. I'd either remove them entirely (maybe adding some tighter schooling behavior to regular fish along the way) or improve them. If I were to try and improve them instead of getting rid of them I'd probably make them whisp around the environment more in a faster snake-like form like in some concept art and early videos rather than being the vague slow-moving blobs they are now, but honestly I'd probably just remove them and focus on other things.


Sound Design:
I feel like the animal sound design while alright could use some work. I feel like in the first game there was such a harmony between the ambience and animal calls, with the whispy calls and drones of animals flowing nicely with the background ambiance. In Below Zero the animal calls are often loud, harsh, bellows that break up the ambiance in a way that's less appealing.


Animations and Effects:
I feel some animations could use tweaks, stuff like the Brute Shark, Triops, and other animals have swimming animations that don't quite make sense, and others like the Cryptosuchus have odd looking attack animations where they flail about without any grace. I guess a few examples of changes I'd make would be having the Brute Shark use their fins more while swimming like this, and make the Triops and Brinewing use less of their whole bodies and mostly just their fins like this. The Shadow Leviathan could also be made more sleek in their movement, holding their claws closer to the body and raising their neck up a bit like in the concept art.

I'd also tone down the blood cloud effects. Maybe have them be darker in color and not bioluminescent, since they feel distracting and out of place as is.

And not entirely related but it feels like fish in Alien Containment zip around far too fast, when they'd look nicer at a third their current speed, but perhaps that's a more complicated issue.


Fish Reskins:
I feel like the remaining fish directly ported from the old game, or at least some of them that don't really make sense being here, should get at the very least reskins, if not remodels like the Purple vs Red Feather Fish. My personal suggestions would be to give the Boomerang their concept art recolor, Spinefish definitely needs a replacement which I'd personally have be a Blue Discus like the unused concept art, and Hoopfish could stay but they could also get a slight reskin like the Boomerang. But there's so much concept art and potential to pull from that these replacements/reskins could be anything really.


Land Reskin:
I've said it before, but the above ground environment feels barren, only having the occasional large predator, and while that isn't a bad thing it could be switched up a bit to make things more interesting. I feel the solution would be at least one small passive animal dotting the land decently commonly like the terrestrial equivalent to a small fish, possibly edible, and while an entirely new animal certainly couldn't happen, what about a reskin? There are a couple things that could be reskinned/remodeled, being the Cave/Blood Crawler, Crabsquid, and Spinner Fish (which seem like a weird choice, but actually look surprisingly good rolling around on land, so all they'd need is appropriate physics and a new idle animation). The Crabsquid and Spinner Fish variants might be a bit much in terms of work, so I'd probably go with a shy passive Cave Crawler relative running around on the ice, maybe something box crab-ish. Honestly a "wild" Trivalve variant might work even better but I'm still not sure what the deal is there so.



I hope I haven't sounded demanding or anything with all of this. Honestly I could've made this cleaner in general but if I keep changing this instead of uploading the game will already be out by the time I've posted it.