Wreck Overgrowth

Presently, the wrecks in Subnautica 2 do not show their age. Lore-wise, approximately 30 years have passed since the Cicada crashed, but none of them look a day older than any of the wrecks from the original Subnautica, which were only 3 hours old. Subnautica 2’s wrecks are simply too clean, with virtually no signs of nature attempting to claim them. Personally, I would like to see a page taken out of Subnautica: Below Zero’s playbook, which saw the more aged Mercury II wrecks overgrown with corals, roots, and other flora, both inside and out.

Heck, even Subnautica 2 itself has good examples of this, such as the Welcome Center, which has long since been consumed by nature. Wrecks, as of the current build, have no such details, and I believe that adding overgrowth to them will make them not only look more their age, but also make them much more visually interesting. Overgrowth can also allow for the inclusion of Oxygen Tunics inside of wrecks, serving as an alternative for the somewhat repetitive leaking oxygen tanks (that have been leaking for 30 years?).

In addition to anchored life, mobile lifeforms taking up residency inside of wrecks would also help in making them feel like they were abandoned for many years. EA1.1 saw some Nibblers added to the inside of a wreck, which was a good start, but by now smaller fish should also be prevalent inside. Shoals of fish were plentiful inside the Mercury II, and I believe it could work just as well here. To really get the passage of time across, perhaps some of the fish have even established long-standing nests inside.

P.S. More signs of the Tailings scrapping wrecks for parts would be swag as well okay thank you

I really do find the leaking oxygen tanks odd, they break the immersion because they’re an illogical solution for giving the player oxygen that was very clearly a product of game design choice external to the game’s setting rather than something with an in-universe explanation.

This! I also would like to add that I wish we could use our tools (the sonic device, perhaps?) to break down wreckage throughout the biomes. IE: the Alterra boxes, the random bits of scrap, things like that. Maybe not the story pieces, but the random trash-like bits throughout. The PDA literally says that we should leave no trace behind, so it would be really nice if we could take even a small step toward that.