The idea of printing pioneers reduces the fear of dying (and everything in general)

The idea of “printing” pioneers makes a lot of sense in this world and I think it’s a very nice and neat explanation for the player having infinite lives.
Gameplay-wise, there’s no difference with most games just pretending that you never died and putting you back at your last saved location.

BUT the fact that in the two other games, the pioneer could really die would make it WAY more scary. Personally (but I don’t think I’m the only one), in a game as immersive as Subnautica I become the character during my play time. If I know that my character in game really is immortal, I’ll feel like it as well and become a lot less fearful of everything.
In the first game, even though you could respawn after dying, in terms of the story Ryley was mortal ; when I’d encounter my first reapers, some primitive part of my brain really thought I was going to die and the adrenaline generated then was second to none.

I really think this is lacking in Subnautica 2 and it might be one of the reasons why the community finds the game less scary than the first one (which is not a good thing in my opinion).

Good luck with the development of the game and best wishes to you all !
(I still really love the game :) )

Yeah, death needs to be a greater punishment.
A few temporarily lost items isn’t punishing enough.
There is little fear of death.

To get the Collector biomod I stored all my inventory except the bioscanner and approached the Collector with no fear until I succeeded.

In real life even a person who knows they would be reprinted would still be afraid of dying because dying is gruesome.

Fear of death is already difficult for any game to achieve because the player knows they are playing a video game and there are no real life consequences except some lost time.

A permadeath mode would make players more afraid of dying.

But reprinting pioneers is written into the story, so a permadeath mode wouldn’t make sense unless reprinting is omitted.

I think there will come a “Hardcore” difficulty that would apply a “Do Not Reprint” status to the player character which will truly make players mortal. If you die, you cannot respawn and you lose everything. The specific implementation & mechanics of such a game mode in a multiplayer game is unknown to me though.

Printing is a vital aspect of the game’s lore & story, so I don’t think it is going to be changed or altered. Or maybe it can change, if the developers, designers, & writers want to change up the story during development.

Personally, I have found Subnautica 2 to be scarier than the first game because of how dark, foggy, or blurry the environment could become sometimes. People may be less scared on this game due to being accustomed to the atmosphere of the two previous games. I do hope they make Subautica 2 scarier though; with future updates

Have an in-game bo-bed save mechanic where players need to capture their current state as a new imprint by interacting with their bio-bed. Then the next time you die, NoA would reprint you back to your last recorded bio-bed save with nothing in inventory. If you want the stuff you dropped, go pick it up like you have to for everyone else who died. Of course, the player black box needs a rework so that you can locate it easier.

I’ll be honest: I’m ^more^ reluctant to die in this game. In the other games, as you pointed out, the game just pretends you didn’t die and dings you some of your belongings.

Here, thanks to untrustworthy NOA…if I die, will my memories be wiped? Will I be even the same person? Will I have been changed in some way without my knowledge or permission? (Leaving aside the horrifyingly casual way many of the colonists, Ruby especially, treat death, which adds its own layer of awful.)

From a player standpoint, of course I’ll retain all the knowledge I’ve gained, but the in-game possible loss of identity and autonomy adds a creepiness to death that makes me avoid it even harder.

I think the printing is a pretty nice and horrifying touch. We’ve seen what happens in Soma and Black Mirror, it might be a fate worse than death.