After the widespread critical and financial success of 2018’sSubnauticaand 2021’sSubnautica: Below Zero, underwater diving fans will soon be able to explore another alien ocean world in Unknown Worlds Entertainment’s upcomingSubnautica 2. Initially announced at Xbox’s 2024 October Partner Preview,Subnautica 2will have similar gameplay mechanics as the first two games, along with a new story and new features such as the ability to play in co-op and hints at an ability to alter characters’ biology. However, according to a supposedSubnautica 2playtest leak, the upcoming sequel may upend its predecessors' traditions in one major way: starting the game deep underwater.
Subnautica 2’s Playtest Leak Explained
In late 2024, Unknown Worlds announced thatSubnautica 2would be heading into Early Accesssometime in 2025. According toSubnautica 2’s Steam listing, Unknown Worlds is puttingSubnautica 2into Early Access to allow fans to “… play the earliest version ofSubnautica 2” and so that the developer can build better games based on ongoing fan feedback. Players interested in playingSubnautica 2in Early Access were asked to reach out to Unknown Worlds via their official Discord channel. However, according toReddit user SN2Throwaway, Unknown Worlds has already begun letting select members of their Discord begin playtesting the game.
SN2Throwaway divulged numerous supposed details of this playtest on Saturday, June 21, according to information told to them by a friend who participated in the playtest. According to SteamDB, aSubnautica 2playtest beta was created on Thursday, June 5 and was last updated on Monday, June 9. SN2Throwaway’s Reddit post detailed how theSubnautica 2is supposedly built on Unreal Engine 5.5.4, that a creature called the Collector is “… quite scary," previousSubnauticacharacters Ryley Robinson and Marguerit Maidaare referenced, and that players will “…start really deep rather than high.” Later, SN2Throwaway describes starting the game deep underwater as “… fear inducing…” and that the player is only able to start deep underwater thanks to an ability to modify genes.
How Subnautica 2’s Leaked Start Can Impact the Game
If SN2Throwaway’s leaks turn out to be true and remain the same in laterSubnautica 2playtests and Early Access gameplay,Subnautica 2’s start may flip fans’ traditional conceptions ofSubnautica’s story and gameplay loop. Little is currently officially known aboutSubnautica 2’s storyaside from the fact that players will embody pioneers who travel to a new distant world too dangerous for normal humans to survive in.
Unknown Worlds suggests that players may have to “… change what it means to be human” and that an artificial intelligence will encourage the pioneers to continue on. Based on this vague official story synopsis and SN2Throwaway’s leaks, havingSubnautica 2start deep underwatercould set up the game’s themes.
For instance,Subnautica 2may start with a ship crashing into the depths of one of this new alien world’s many oceans in a state that traps the pioneer in the flooding ship rather than alifepod as seen inSubnautica 1. This could lead the ship’s onboard AI to direct the pioneer to use an experimental gene-altering machine to make it so the pioneer can instantly withstand the pressure of the ocean’s depths. While the pioneer may survive the crash this way, it could instantly reveal to players what horrors lie deep in the alien ocean and essentially scare them back to the surface, as SN2Throwaway’s leaks claim players get propelled back to the surface shortly after starting in the depths.
Potential Gameplay and Thematic Subnautica 2 Developments
Instead of having players begin the game rather peacefully,Subnautica 2’s underwater opening could indicate that the game may be more horror-focused, while at the same time showing that there are other ways to navigate the ocean depths besides using technology.Subnauticaplayers could explore the ocean world 4546Bfreely, but only to a point where they were required to find schematics and build various types of submarines to progress the story and travel to the planet’s horrifying depths.Subnautica 2may flip the script in a sense, letting players alter their genes to survive certain hostile environments instead of being pigeonholed into using just machines to explore other regions of the planet.
