Subnautica 2 has been rolling out hotfixes since it originally launched into Early Access on May 14, including most recently lowering the aggression levels of some of its most frustrating fish. But today we get the first glimpse of what developers Unknown Worlds have planned for future, larger updates, including a whole new region below the Collector Leviathan’s realm. And like other recent statements, it feels like it’s all being delivered from under the shadow of some recent reputational damage after members of the dev team were…less than diplomatic in occasional responses to players.
Subnautica 2 is, in the main (clever joke alert), a strong start for a game that intends to be in Early Access for at least three years. There’s a solid 20 hours of exploration available, mysteries to dig into, and so very many things to scan on an all-new alien ocean world. And while a lot of the response has been well-received by the developers, things did get a little spicy when it came to player demands to be able to use weapons against the sealife. Unknown Worlds has fallen over itself to apologize for said spiciness, but it’s certainly left sections of the game’s community feeling like they were asked for their feedback and then told, quite literally, to go play something else if they don’t like it. It’s from under this shadow that the first few patches have arrived, and you can still feel the effects in this first update video from the team.
As such Anthony Gallegos, design lead on Subnautica 2, begins with a little speech about just how valuable player feedback has been. That done, we get some more concrete news on what we can expect next.
Along with obvious improvements to performance and bug fixes, there’s the excellent news that the Biomod System will now allow us to unlock multiple passive slots, with more mods earlier in the game to put in them. Alongside this, wrecks are getting “improvements,” although there are no details on exactly what these will be—my hope would be clearer pathing to prevent drowning after you’ve gone through five different doors and then absolutely cannot find your way back in time.
Another great-sounding improvement is to “blight encounters.” If you’ve played Sub 2, you’ll know that these are under-explained and too easy to miss, then made worse by deeply frustrating fishy irritants. Upcoming updates will, we’re promised, make them visually clearer and balance fish aggression better. There’s also a plan to deal with a recurring issue where voiceover dialogue will crash, one line interrupting another and the former lost, even if it were plot critical.
Multiplayer fans, meanwhile, will soon be getting emotes and proximity voice chat—a much-requested feature.
Then, rather importantly, there’s a new content drop in the works. This, it seems, will flesh out that big gap where the Collector Leviathan lives, and re-introduce a stompy chassis option for your Tadpole. It’ll also feature new creatures and add a bunch more story, and they promise it’ll be the scariest bit yet. This! More story! Quickly!
No actual dates have been announced for these updates, but presumably the plan is to introduce the tweaks and fixes via the regular hotfixes as they’re finished. As for more content, that’s anyone’s guess, but the fact that we were shown concept art of a new creature rather than anything in-game might suggest it’s nothing imminent.
