Subnautica 2 explained before you start

Subnautica 2 has been in Early Access for 147 days, and the studio making it says the whole Early Access period should run "about 2 to 3 years". On Tuesday 6 October Unknown Worlds released the second hotfix for update 1.2, "Buddy System", the update that gave the game's four-player co-op a proximity voice chat. The Steam page also answers the price question directly: "Yes, the price of Subnautica 2 will increase after Early Access." This page is for someone deciding whether to start now or wait: what the build holds today, what it costs on each store, what the developer has changed since May, and what the age labels say.

What it is

Steam's description calls it "an underwater survival adventure game set on an all-new alien world". You are one of the Pioneers carried by the colony ship CICADA, something goes wrong on the way, and "The ship's AI insists that your mission should continue." From there you scan plants and animals, craft tools, build bases and travel in a submersible called the Tadpole, pushing past "the safety of shallow waters".

It is built for one player first. In the store's words, "Subnautica 2 is being crafted as a single-player experience that you can optionally play in online co-operative multiplayer with up to three friends."

It is not a shooter, and the studio's current direction keeps it that way. When players asked for more direct ways to deal with hostile creatures, "including the ability to kill them", the team's letter of 20 May answered that "Subnautica has always been built around vulnerability, exploration, and survival rather than traditional weapon-based combat." What it promised instead was tuning: changes to "creature aggression timing, aggro range, flare effectiveness, Survival Tool effectiveness, and creature interactions with vehicles and bases".

The money side was promised in writing in July 2025: "No subscriptions. No loot boxes. No battle pass. No microtransactions." On 8 October the only paid add-on for it on Steam is the soundtrack.

Who makes it, and who publishes it

Unknown Worlds' own press page says the studio "was founded by Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire in San Francisco California in 2001", grew out of the Half-Life mod Natural Selection, and released the first Subnautica in Early Access in January 2015 and in full on Steam in January 2018. Subnautica: Below Zero followed the same path, from Early Access in January 2019 to release in May 2021.

The publisher is named two ways. Steam lists Unknown Worlds Entertainment as developer and publisher, and Microsoft's catalogue does the same. The ESRB and PEGI records both name KRAFTON, Inc., and the support link on the Steam page goes to support.krafton.com. The studio's own words connect the two: in July 2025 it wrote about "the news from our publisher regarding the leadership changes at Unknown Worlds", said that "KRAFTON feels strongly about supporting that vision at the studio", and said it was supporting Steve Papoutsis "as he transitions into his role as CEO at Unknown Worlds". Six days later it delayed Early Access to 2026.

datasets/games.csv records Subnautica 2 with Unknown Worlds Entertainment as developer, Unknown Worlds Entertainment as publisher with KRAFTON, Inc. noted from the rating boards, a first release of 2026-05-14 (the start of Early Access), the platforms Windows PC and Xbox Series X|S, the genre survival adventure and the era current: the thirty-first row.

The road to Early Access, and what has shipped since

Every date below is the date of the developer's own post on Steam.

The roadmap has held so far. Its post of 15 May promised a first update of quality-of-life fixes and a second one for players "choosing co-op", and that is what 1.1 and 1.2 were. Its third step, "the next big drop that expands on the world, biomes, creatures, resources, tools, vehicles, and brings you the next chapter of the story", has no date in any post we read, and the roadmap itself says it "is subject to change or adjustment."

What the build holds today

The developer's own description of the Early Access version is short: "Subnautica 2 will include a multiplayer mode, several biomes, some narrative, and a variety of creatures and craftables." The playable world has an edge, too. The 1.2 notes say that Tadpoles "destroyed outside of the Early Access fence teleport inside of the Early Access fence", which is the patch notes' name for the boundary.

Some details a new player meets early:

• Characters. The store says "You can choose from four pre-designed characters", and 1.2 added two more, Jegna and Grace.
• Biomods. Since 1.1, "Players can now unlock a total of six Biomods from Biolabs found throughout the world, up from four previously", and extra passive slots open as you scan creatures.
• Defending yourself. 1.1 made most creatures flee after a hit from the Survival Multitool, and 1.2 extended the Sonic Resonator's stun to 10 seconds.
• The warning label. Steam's text says "You may encounter bugs, in-development features, and performance issues." Microsoft's listing is blunter: "This game is a work in progress. It may or may not change over time or release as a final product."

What it costs, and where

Prices as read on 8 October 2026.

The bundle arithmetic is simple: three games at $29.99 make $89.97, and Steam's 10% bundle discount brings that to $80.97. On the morning we checked, a sale on the first two games, 75% off at $7.49 each, brought the bundle down to $40.47, but that offer's countdown ended at 17:00 UTC the same day.

Game Pass is the cheapest way to try it if you already pay for the service: Microsoft's own lists of the games "included with PC Game Pass" and with "XBOX Game Pass Console" both contain it. Two other platform facts matter. On Xbox, owning the game is not enough for online co-op: the 1.1 notes say "a Game Pass subscription (any tier) is required to play multiplayer". And there is no PlayStation or Switch version so far. None has been announced in any post we read, the ESRB and PEGI records cover PC and Xbox Series only, and the studio's games list shows Epic, Steam and Xbox for Subnautica 2 while showing PlayStation and Switch only for the two earlier games. In February the studio's own call to action was "Wishlist Subnautica 2 on Steam, Xbox, and Epic Games now."

Before your first dive

Check the hardware. Steam's minimum is Windows 10 or 11, an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 12 GB of memory and a GeForce GTX 1660 6GB or RX 5500 XT 6GB; the recommended set is Windows 11, a Core i7-13700 or Ryzen 7 7700X, 16 GB and an RTX 3070 8GB or RX 6700 XT 8GB. Both need 50 GB of storage, and both list a "Broadband Internet connection"; the store does not say whether single-player runs offline. On Steam Deck the game is Verified, with one note: external controllers are not supported for the primary player.

Expect the predators to be hard work. The 20 May letter admitted that "some predator encounters feel more frustrating than tense or exciting" and that "Mitigation tools are not always clear, reliable, or satisfying". The Survival Multitool and the Sonic Resonator have been changed in the updates since; the letter's list, which also names flares, was to be delivered "over a series of upcoming patches".

Keep saves on one branch. The Experimental branch is opt-in and separate: "Saves are also not compatible between versions." Since the 1 September hotfix, "Save files now track build number and branch, preventing incompatible saves from being loaded into older builds."

Turn mods off before a patch. Each recent hotfix post repeats the same advice: "If you play Subnautica 2 with mods, please temporarily disable, remove, or uninstall them before launching the game following the hotfix."

On Xbox, a patch can arrive later. The July hotfix noted it "will be available on Xbox once it has cleared certification."

Co-op, voice chat and the age labels

Up to four people can play together, which puts it in the same group size as Deep Rock Galactic, and they can mix PC and Xbox: the February multiplayer vlog describes cross-play "including on the ROG Xbox Ally series and Steam Deck". Since 1.2, players can revive each other, trade items directly and talk by proximity voice, which fades with distance and has three settings: "always on", "push to talk" and "always off". The 1.1 update revised the privacy policy to cover "how we are planning to process voice data for the upcoming Proximity Chat feature".

PEGI's notes are the most useful for a parent. The game "has received a PEGI 12 because it features moderate violence, use of bad language and scenes that younger players may find disturbing." Its content notes say "giant alien creatures are able to hunt and consume the player's character", that "No blood or injuries are depicted", and that in multiplayer "the player is able to witness this happening to other players from a third-person perspective, not seen in single-player mode". They add that "The sounds of bones crunching and pained sound effects may be disturbing to some players", and that the bad language includes "piss".

How many people play

Steam held 128,446 reviews in all languages when we read it, 116,855 of them positive, which is 91.0% and the store's "Very Positive" band. The store page adds two narrower summaries: "83% of the 1,420 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive", and English-language reviews are 93% positive across 72,449. At 12:19 UTC on Thursday 8 October, 1,303 people were playing it on Steam. That count covers Steam only, and we found no player count for the Microsoft Store or Game Pass; xbox.com shows an average rating of 4.4 from 3,295 ratings.

Before launch the studio announced that "Subnautica 2 has officially reached 5 million wishlists." No source we read gives a sales figure for Subnautica 2. The series panel on subnautica.com credits the Subnautica games with "over 15 million copies sold worldwide", without a date or a breakdown by game.

The prices, the counts, the update list, the Microsoft listing and the Game Pass lists can all be re-read with the script that ships with this article, which also reports whether Steam still files the game under Early Access:

python subnautica-2-check.py

Correction, 10 October 2026: the player count can no longer be re-read with the script. It came from api.steampowered.com, whose robots.txt closes every address to every automated reader, and the script now reads each site's robots.txt before its first request there and skips what the file closes. It prints the 1,303 read at 12:19 UTC on 8 October instead, marked as such. The update list now comes from the Steam store's own event list, which held the same 48 posts on 10 October, and the script's other checks run as before. The rest of the article is unchanged.

What is not known

• When 1.0 arrives. The only figure is the Early Access estimate. Counted from 14 May 2026, "about 2 to 3 years" points to somewhere between May 2028 and May 2029. The studio's record fits that range: by the months on its own timeline, the first Subnautica spent about 36 months in Early Access and Below Zero about 28.
• What 1.0 will cost. Only that the price "will increase".
• What the next expansion contains, and when. The roadmap lists its subjects and gives no date.
• Whether other platforms follow. Nothing has been announced.

For scale, Valheim, another survival game, spent five and a half years in Early Access before its 1.0 in September.

Should you start now

Start now if you have Game Pass, because it costs nothing extra to find out, or if you want to play with friends: co-op, revives and voice chat are the parts the updates have built up fastest. On Steam, $29.99 is the Early Access price, and the developer has said in writing that the price will go up after Early Access.

Wait if you want the whole story. The developer's own summary of the build is "several biomes, some narrative", its next expansion has no date, and its estimate puts 1.0 years away. If you have never played the series, the first two games are complete, and on Steam the Deep Ocean Bundle puts all three in one purchase.

For a child, the labels point to ten to twelve and up: E10+ from the ESRB, 12 from PEGI, and USK 12 on Microsoft's listing. Set voice chat to "always off" if they will play with people they do not know, and read PEGI's note about creatures that "hunt and consume" the player's character before handing over the controller.

About the images

This page has no pictures. Unknown Worlds' press page is headed "PRESS KIT", but it holds only text: a factsheet, contact addresses and a timeline, with no image files to download. The studio's terms of use say a visitor may not "use or transmit any Materials on or to any other Web site", and they count images among the Materials. So we left them out.