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nothing can quite evoke that same sense of awe and terror simultaneously.
The PC versions of the Subnautica games support VR (the native implementation is a bit scrappy but there's an excellent mod). I can testify to the intensity of the awe and terror when played like that. "I know there's a leviathan around here somewhere... OMIGOD IT'S BEHIND ME!"
I have no idea why I'm still going.... I can feel the lost of completion already
As long as you're able to maintain your base (or bases) and incrementally improve it while not dying of starvation or thirst, you're not losing anything. It's a survival/exploration game; the burn is supposed to be slow. Cautious explaration brings you tech that let you improve your bases and vehicles so that you can survive better and explore more, which leads to building multiple bases so that you can explore even further and find more tech, and so on. The notional deadlines of the game are all triggered by story progression, not actual time played.
If you want to avoid the feeling of repeated loss of progress, you need to spend more time on base building/maintenance than story progression.
Trying to play Subnautica on the SD... Its a rather slow burn. Also I've caused my mini sub to implode which saddens me. The next one I will call Titan II in its honour.