Confession time: I never finished the original Subnautica. After about 10 hours of solo exploration, I put it down, not because I didn’t appreciate what it was doing, but because I spent the entire time wishing I was playing it with friends. My group has a long history of working through crafting survival games together, and Subnautica just wasn’t the kind of experience that worked for me on my own. So when Subnautica 2 was announced with up to four-player co-op, it instantly became one of the games I was most looking forward to.
After a year of delays, lawsuits, and leadership shakeups at Unknown Worlds, the sequel finally launched into Early Access on May 14, 2026, for $29.99 on Xbox Series X|S and PC, with day one Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass support. About 15 hours in with my group, Subnautica 2 is pretty much everything I was hoping for. It isn’t trying to reinvent the formula, and that’s the point. Unknown Worlds has delivered a polished, better-looking, co-op version of the original Subnautica, and after the year the studio has had, it’s a relief to be saying that.
Buddy Up
Co-op is the headline feature for Subnautica 2, and it’s the reason I’m actually playing the sequel after bouncing off the original. Up to four players can drop in and out, with crossplay between Xbox and PC. The flexibility has been the best part of the experience so far. We can split up to cover more ground gathering resources, work together on building out the base, or set out as a group when the mood strikes.
The underwater setting also adds a tension you don’t get in most survival games. Losing track of a teammate in the deep is a different kind of unsettling than wandering off in a forest, and the moments where someone calls out something they’ve found right before strange noises start and awful things happen have already given us some of the best memories we’ve had in a survival game in a while.
Familiar Waters
The core loop of Subnautica 2 will feel immediately familiar to anyone who played the original. You explore the ocean to find new biomes and resources, scan flora, fauna, and equipment fragments to add them to your knowledge base, gather raw materials from the world around you, and bring everything back to the fabricator to craft new tools, vehicles, and base components. Each new piece of equipment unlocks deeper parts of the world, which feeds back into more scanning, more gathering, and more crafting. It’s the same emphasis on exploration, mystery, lore, and the slow grind of pushing deeper into a world that doesn’t want you there. There’s a more guided path this time around that may or may not work for everyone, but the core appeal of Subnautica remains intact, just dressed up nicer and with friends along for the ride.
Visually, Subnautica 2 is a noticeable step up from the original. The world looks fantastic, swimming feels smooth and easily controllable, and the game has been running well on every setup in our group. The Early Access state is impressive considering the year Unknown Worlds has had behind the scenes, with none of the rough edges you’d expect from a game just landing in Early Access.
Base Camp
Base building has been one of our favorite parts of the experience so far. It’s not the deepest system you’ll find in a survival game, but it’s also not tedious or cumbersome. Resources are plentiful, and the build mode is intuitive enough that we can iterate on a base without it feeling like a chore. The one early frustration is the limited inventory, which gets in the way during the first few hours before you’ve unlocked more inventory space.
Progression itself feels like it’s paced well. The upgrades you unlock, whether they’re new tools or new vehicles, all feel like meaningful steps forward rather than incremental bumps. Each new piece of equipment either opens up something new to explore or makes an existing task substantially better. As for the overall scope, the current Early Access build offers around 15 to 20 hours of content depending on how much time you spend exploring and discovering things. You will run into world boundaries at this stage, but the amount of content here for an Early Access launch feels pretty good.
Course Correction
It would feel weird to write up Subnautica 2 without acknowledging what the studio has been through. Krafton’s handling of Unknown Worlds over the past year has been ugly, from firing the original Subnautica founders to the $250 million bonus lawsuit, the leadership replacement, and the eventual court order that restored former CEO Ted Gill. Krafton has since been removed as publisher entirely. A lot of people were understandably skeptical about whether Subnautica 2 would land in a good state at all.
Based on what we’ve played, I’m confident in the game’s long-term direction. Unknown Worlds played the Early Access launch safe by delivering what is essentially Subnautica with co-op and a coat of polish, and that was the right call. The studio has already moved over two million copies and built trust on day one, which means it can use Early Access feedback to decide where to take the game from here. It can take real risks with the post-launch content because it’s already mitigated the upfront risk by playing it safe at launch. For anyone who bounced off the original because they wanted to play it with friends, like I did, this is finally your moment.
Subnautica 2 entered Early Access on May 14, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S and PC. These first impressions are based on a purchased retail copy of the game on PC (Intel i9-14900K, 96GB DDR5-6800 RAM, MSI RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC). While FullCleared does have affiliate partnerships, they do not influence our editorial content. We may, however, earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.
Subnautica 2 First Impressions Gallery
