Unknown Worlds Entertainment released highly-anticipated sequel Subnautica 2 via Early Access — and it’s already a humongous indie success. In its first day (actually during pre-orders), Subnautica 2 has already sold over a million copies, with peak concurrent players on Steam currently reigning at over 460,000.
Wow!
The original Subnautica launched way back in 2018. It’s part of that popular Open World Survival Craft genre, where players scavenge for supplies to build new tools and structures, while exploring a large, often dangerous world.
Subnautica’s twist is that it’s set on an alien planet that’s mostly ocean. Players must explore further and deeper from their crashed ship in order to uncover its mysteries, and ultimately escape.
Subnautica was a major success story, boasting an Overwhelmingly Positive (96%) user rating on Steam, and selling millions of copies worldwide. It’s widely considered one of the best survival crafting games of all time. It spawned a more narrative-focused spin-off, Below Zero, in 2021.
The long-awaited true sequel offers a big visual boost with Unreal Engine 5, and entirely new ecosystems to explore.
But the big new feature is multiplayer co-op! Though still designed as a single-player experience, up to four players can survive and build together in Subnautica 2.
“The Early Access launch of Subnautica 2 marks the beginning of an adventure to chart the unknown deep alongside players worldwide,” said Fernando Melo, Executive Producer, Subnautica 2. “Player feedback is the compass guiding our direction, and we will continue building the experience together with the community throughout Early Access.”
The developers anticipate Subnautica 2 will remain in Early Access for at least two years: “Our goal for the full version of Subnautica 2 is a more polished, feature rich version of the game with more content than at Early Access release. Throughout Early Access, we plan to release a number of updates that add new content to the game — such as more biomes, creatures, craftables, features, and narratives.”
Subnautica 2 is available on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store) and Xbox Series X/S, and rated E10+.
