Barotrauma

1. Summary

Players overwhelmingly recommend Barotrauma. The praise keeps coming back to a crew of friends running a fragile submarine through an alien ocean, each person with a job, until something breaks and the run turns into panic and screaming that people then retell in their reviews. Reviewers also praise the deep-sea horror atmosphere, the depth of the systems (wiring, medicine, crafting, reactor management), what several call a huge modding community, with mods such as Neurotrauma, and a submarine editor some people play more than the game itself. Jokes fill the reviews: overdosing crewmates on morphine, clown cults, reactor meltdowns, a bot crewman called Artie Dolittle.

Most of that praise assumes a committed crew. Reviewers split on whether solo play with bots is worth it, and the bot crew's habits (wasting ammo, drowning without suits, getting stuck on ladders) draw detailed complaints even in positive reviews. Negative reviews describe long quiet stretches and repetitive missions between the dangerous moments, clunky ragdoll movement and inventory handling, a steep learning curve with a thin tutorial, and lag in large late-game or modded sessions. Public servers get both affection and complaints about griefers and admins, and players disagree about whether the $35 price that reviewers cite is fair.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

A co-op crew where every role mattersHigh

Friends come up in 37% of the longer reviews, and 15% explicitly praise playing with friends or a crew. Players like that the captain, engineer, mechanic, medic, security officer and assistant each have real work, and that the sub only survives if they communicate. Their favourite stories come from a quiet trip that suddenly collapses, as one group described it: "One end of the submarine is on fire, the other is flooded under 50 atmospheres of pressure." Several reviewers compare a campaign to a tabletop game night, including the downside of booking one; one put it as "harder to organise a session with your crew than dnd though". Others warn that a group who will not commit to a long campaign may never finish it.

Mods and the Steam WorkshopHigh

Mods or the Workshop come up in 18% of the longer reviews, and several reviewers describe a "huge modding community". Players name Neurotrauma (a much deeper medical system), Barotraumatic, Dynamic Europa, Real Sonar and the Warhammer 40k conversion, and many treat mods as the way to keep the game fresh after a first campaign: "With the help of mods this is basically infinite fun". A few credit the game's open code and XML data for making modding easy. Some players call certain mods mandatory, and modded servers bring long downloads, broken mods after updates and extra lag (see the frustrations).

Deep-sea horror and atmosphereHigh

Atmosphere, horror, dread or thalassophobia come up in 16% of the longer reviews. Players describe the hull groaning, sonar pings, monsters they never fully see, and the fear of leaving the sub to mine in a dark cave while it drifts away. Several say they doubted a 2D game could be this immersive, and one reviewer described the mood as "you have to stay vigilant with cheeks clenched". A few short-playtime reviewers found the 2D look ugly or too dark, and some found the slapstick physics undercut the horror.

Chaotic, emergent comedyMedium

Friendly fire, drugged crewmates, a clown faction that worships the "Honkmother", husk parasites spreading through the crew, nuclear shells fired too close to the sub: chaos, comedy or laughter come up in 10% of the longer reviews, and the clown and husk factions in 9%. Reviewers tell these disasters as highlights of their runs. When strangers cause the same chaos on public servers, it becomes the griefing complaint.

Deep, hands-on systemsMedium

Reviewers who stay with the game praise how much it simulates: electrical wiring and logic circuits, a medical system with dozens of drugs and afflictions, crafting, reactor management, talent trees, faction reputation and gene splicing. Depth, complexity or wiring come up in 9% of the longer reviews. Engineers point out that the wiring uses real logic gates and circuits, and a few say they had to learn electrical basics to automate their sub. Critics say much of that depth turns into a few best builds and clicking a repair button, which ties into the repetition complaints.

The submarine editorMedium

Players single out the built-in editor for designing subs, wiring and even creatures, and several say most of their hours went there; one asked "hold on, there's a game attached to this submarine design program?" Workshop subs from other players are a big part of the variety. The complaints are about difficulty: reviewers say the editor needs a tutorial, items do not align cleanly to the grid, only one person can edit at a time, and campaign subs cannot be rebuilt mid-run without the editor.

Runs on modest hardware and many platformsLow

Reviewers report the game running on old laptops, school Chromebooks and Steam Deck, and praise the native Linux build and Mac support. This holds for early and vanilla play; large late-game subs and heavy mod lists are the exception (see performance).

Lore, music and long-term supportLow

A smaller group praises the lore of a Europa colony torn between the Coalition, the Separatists and two cults, the soundtrack, and years of free updates from a studio they see as caring. Several say they are waiting for an expansion they call Home and Harbor. The ending draws a few complaints from players who found it confusing or disconnected from the rest of the story.

Where players are split

Whether solo play is worth itMedium

Reviewers disagree on whether the campaign works alone. Solo players who stuck with it describe finishing the campaign or enjoying switching between bot crewmates, and one wrote that "the bots have some small quirks but overall the game was more than adequate with no real teammates". Others are blunt: "If you're looking to play this game singleplayer, don't." Solo complaints say the player ends up as permanent captain, has to manage logistics bots cannot handle (looting, restocking, away missions), and loses runs to bot mistakes. Several reviewers who returned after a break say solo play improved over the years.

Steep learning curve and punishing difficultyMedium

The learning curve or tutorial comes up in 6% of the longer reviews. Fans call the challenge fair once learned ("Somehow a perfect blend of uncompromising and forgiving gameplay.") and say figuring things out with friends is part of the fun. Players who bounced off it describe a tutorial that only covers basics, wiring that is never explained, and sudden deaths with no clear cause; one called the tutorial "more confusing than helpful", and a long solo review said the game "regularly wipes runs due to sudden, poorly telegraphed chaos". Several reviewers point to a sharp jump in difficulty from the first biome to the second.

Public serversMedium

Some players spend hundreds of hours on public roleplay and campaign servers and say the community taught them the game. Others describe griefers unwiring the sub or blowing up the reactor, admins who kick or ban newcomers, and campaigns lost when the host leaves; one reviewer advised "Randoms pose a danger so be aware." English-speaking players add that many lobbies are Russian-speaking or password-locked, and a couple of players in Asia mention high ping.

The priceMedium

Price comes up in 6% of the longer reviews and in 11% of all negative reviews. Many positive reviewers say the hours made it worth it while still advising a sale. Because the game needs three to six players, the price also makes it hard to get a group to buy in; one fan who says it ends up worth it ("35$ is a LOT to charge but if you really get into the game it becomes worth it") still finds friends hard to convince. Long-time players who bought it cheaply in Early Access recall the price rising, and a few complain that paid DLC is coming before fixes.

Ragdoll physics and jankMedium

Ragdoll physics, wobbly movement and general jank divide reviewers. Fans call it charm ("Embrace the jank, enjoy the doom, enter the depths.") and the source of much of the comedy. Critics say it makes the game feel bad to control: characters that move "like marionettes on invisible strings", falls down ladders that break legs, doors that crush people, and being stun-locked in a gunfight. Movement complaints come mostly from players in their first hours.

Balance changes in updatesLow

Players who welcome steady updates sit next to veterans who dislike specific changes: the storage rework, nerfs to clown talents and sub speeds, and features removed from singleplayer. One long-time player wrote "Every update makes the game worse, but there is nothing else like it." Several reviewers also said a past update broke their mods or campaign saves.

What frustrates players

Downtime and repetitive missionsMedium

Repetition, boredom or downtime come up in 20% of the longer negative reviews. Players describe waiting at outposts while others shop, long transits where nothing happens, a small pool of mission types (transport, mining, beacons, kill a monster), and jobs like mechanic or engineer that amount to clicking repairs. One wrote "Sit for 15 minutes to wait for the captain to drive a box from point A to point B." Another put it as "One of those games where the better you play the more boring it gets." Positive reviewers often agree the quiet stretches exist and say the chaos makes up for them.

Bot crewmates that need babysittingMedium

Bots or the AI crew come up in 9% of the longer reviews, positive and negative alike, and the same failures recur: bots that drown because they will not put on diving suits, open doors into flooded rooms, waste railgun ammo on small targets, shoot the player, get stuck on ladders, overdose patients on morphine for a bruise, and cannot dock the sub. One reviewer summed it up as "The friendly AI in this game has the collective IQ of mud, and that's being mean to mud." Requests include target and repair priorities, per-bot ignore orders, and bots that restock their own oxygen and ammo.

Clunky inventory, UI and controlsMedium

Controls and jank come up in 15% of the longer negative reviews, and inventory or interface problems in 8% of them. Players describe dragging ammo into guns instead of pressing a reload key, a hotbar that equips the wrong tool, storage containers that need constant sorting, no way to set where items go, small text, and having to reorganize everything after buying a new sub. One reviewer said the UI is "probably the worst one I've experienced through my years of gaming." Several add that Workshop quality-of-life mods fix much of this.

Lag, single-threaded performance and netcodeLow

Performance comes up in 8% of the longer negative reviews, largely from long-time players. They describe frame rates collapsing in large late-game subs, crowded servers or with many items and mods, and blame the game running mainly on one CPU core ("CPU-bound game with no multithreading."). Multiplayer complaints cover desync and rubber-banding (being teleported back at doors and ladders), disconnects, slow in-game mod downloads and long load times.

Bugs, crashes and lost progressLow

A smaller set of reviews report crashes on launch or in menus (including on Mac and Linux), a Corsair keyboard bug, campaigns bricked by bugs or out-of-date saves, lost custom subs with no cloud saves, and missions that fail or soft-lock. Players also dislike that progress saves only at outposts, so a failed mission can cost an hour.

3. The player conversation

The conversation is loud, jokey and affectionate. Nearly half the reviews are a few words long, and the longer positive ones are often stories of a run going wrong, told as a highlight. The negative reviews are longer and more specific, and many of them still praise the concept before explaining why they stopped.

Who complains about what depends on how far players got. Negative reviews from players with under 10 hours most often raise confusion, the learning curve and the controls: dying without understanding why and not knowing what to do after the tutorial. Negative reviews from players past 100 hours turn to the bot crew, griefing and the community, the price, performance and balance changes in updates. Some long-time reviewers edited their reviews over the years, and several of those edits note that solo play or performance improved.

Weekly positive shares in 2025 and 2026 sat between 85% and 100% without a lasting dip. Several recent reviews say they are waiting for the Home and Harbor expansion, and a few object to paid DLC.

4. What the developers could do

1. Cut the downtime between the dangerous moments. Repetition and waiting are among the complaints raised most in the longer negative reviews, and players ask for more mission variety, events during transits and faster outpost restocking.
2. Make the bot crew self-sufficient. Bot mistakes (no diving suits, flooded doors, wasted ammo, stuck on ladders, morphine overdoses) appear in positive and negative reviews alike, and solo players ask for target and repair priorities and per-bot ignore orders.
3. Add basic inventory and control quality-of-life to the base game. Reviewers ask for a reload key, smarter storage and sorting, a shared crafting inventory and easier item placement, and note that popular mods already provide them.
4. Teach the game better, especially in groups. New players who refund cite a tutorial that stops at basics, unexplained wiring and deaths with no clear cause; one new player suggested a multiplayer tutorial so friends can learn together.
5. Spread the simulation across CPU cores and tighten the netcode. Long-time players link late-game and modded lag to single-core performance and describe desync at doors and ladders, slow mod downloads and disconnects.
6. Give hosts better tools against griefing and help newcomers find servers. Public-server players describe reactor griefers, unwired subs and kicks for being new, while English speakers in Europe and Asia report few servers in their language or region.
7. Make it easier for a whole group to buy in. The game needs three to six players, and reviewers say the price stops friends from joining; group bundles or deeper regional discounts are options.
8. Protect campaigns from bugs and lost progress. Players ask for safer saves and fixes for campaign-breaking bugs, and one wants cloud saves for custom subs.