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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.
I think this is why I dislike a lot of games.
snottyotter-
I think this is why I dislike a lot of games.
There are definitely a lot of games where what I've just described is bad design and punishing grind. But in Subnautica it's purposely part of the game experience and fits in. It's a survival game where progressing from teetering on the brink of death to building the technology to let you build the technology to escape the planet is the point. You're not just tediously searching the wilderness for loot, you're finding and exploring lots of creepy wreckage for both tech components and documents that explain why and how your ship crashed. They did a pretty good job of sprinkling the exploration and survival with surprises and rewards. You also know very little about what the main story is till you go look, cause it's a mystery/survival/exploration game.
So I think your point is valid about a lot of games but not so much with this one. That said, there's grind and there's core game activity that some people don't like, so they call it grind. Which it is, to them, but they should have bought a different game. Some people said Assassin's Creed Black Flag was a grindy game, because they're weirdos who don't like being a pirate.
itsbruce
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!"
@ChainBreaker
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.