Subnautica 2's new alien world will teach you to love & fear the deep sea all over again

We played around in Subnautica 2's early access and were mesmerized by the beauty of the new world and the adventures that await in its aquatic depths.

Unknown Worlds Entertainment sure is good at exactly what their studio name suggests: verifiably entertaining unknown worlds. Plural. Because I finally had a chance to dip my toes into Subnautica 2 and I found myself in constant awe. A whole new planet full of new life, discoveries, and challenges to our survival await, and it’s just the beginning as this aquatic adventure takes us on our first dives into its early access release.

Claw your way to the surface

In Subnautica 2, players take on the role of one of many human travelers running from conflict on their home world to seek a new beginning. The target destination was supposed to be a suitably habitable planet known as Zezura, but something unexpected happens and the ship, the CICADA, never makes it there. Instead, it crashes into an unknown aquatic world and scatters its contents across the ocean in broken segments. The player awakes as a human in the wreckage and is quickly set on a path to escape from the depths of an unknown sea up to the surface. There, you find a vast aquatic world full of foreign flora and fauna. There is also a massive tree rising out of the ocean in the far distance, its presence as looming as it is magnificent.

After rescuing an AI core from the depths and acclimating to my situation, the AI (which calls itself NOA) informed me that the mission to resettle with my fellow colonists must continue. It revealed that thousands of “souls” were stored in crystals aboard the CICADA, and we would need to figure out how to scavenge black boxes, materials, and everything else we needed to survive and continue our efforts to create a new home, regardless of the circumstances.

That immediately led to shallow dives into the nearby waters looking for materials to build equipment. Subnautica 2’s undersea is circus of splendid sights, from structures that go deep underground and are full of plants and minerals, to seabed valleys of coral, seaweed, and other growths teeming with schools of colorful fish. Everywhere I looked, a new beautiful sight awaited me, and it changes in real-time through the shifting weather and day/night cycles, which present different sights of creatures and bioluminescent beauty as you explore.

I also learned by swimming through poison and bioelectric plants that if I die, my body will respawn in a “Bio-Bed” at my most recent registered base, but all of the goodies I had in my pack will be packed into a black box where I died. Make no mistake, it’s very easy to die. As you go about, you’ll find little things that hurt you, not the least of which is your own hunger, thirst, and the few seconds of oxygen you have for every dive. Obviously, you can craft to tend to these concerns more efficiently, but then you start spotting critters that are curious about what the planet’s new visitor tastes like or, in one instance, feels like when they smash into it at deadly speed.

Indeed, I saw all sorts of critters whose reactions to me ranged from indifference or fear, to ravenously cuddly. I asked the Unknown Worlds devs what was one of the most interesting things to explore in the sequel so far, and creature behavior was a highlight. Back when the original Subnautica came out, it was difficult to program more than a few behaviors into the sea life. In Subnautica 2, the team delighted in being able to build layers of interactivity and decision-making into the beasts that make them more unpredictable and fun to operate around. I loved swimming thought the oceans observing the world, whether it took notice of me or not, and I think a lot of players will find plenty of their own stories to tell thanks to the work Unknown Worlds has done.

There’s also a lot of mystery and intrigue afoot in Subnautica 2’s early running. As you venture further from your home base, you’ll find broken bits of the CICADA ship housing the records of other crew members who tried to survive and figure out what was going on the same as us. Bit by bit, we revealed slightly disturbing details about the planet and, particularly, the big tree. That exploration also yields some incredibly potent rewards, such as biology adaptations that help you to better survive this world. In one instance, I earned a biological upgrade that allowed me to digest the planet’s edible offerings. Before that upgrade, I had to subsist on supplement bricks or starve to death and work from a respawned body. Bit by bit, your discoveries make you better prepared to deal with the unknown in this exotic and dangerous place.

What new mysteries lay in the deepest depths?

A brand-new and vast world sits before fans in Subnautica 2. This adventure has been a long time coming, but if my time in these new waters showed me anything, the wait seems to have been worth it. This world is beautiful at first, second, and most glances after, and it often found ways to surprise and dazzle me as I was exploring. There is so much to do and every little thing you accomplish lends you the ability to dig deeper into the mysteries below. Subnautica 2 may have just entered early access, but the experience already feels rich and rewarding, and it promises to expand and be even more so as time goes on. There’s little doubt I’m about to spend dozens of hours seeing what wonders and horrors await me in the darkest corners of these alien oceans.

These impressions are based on a preview build of the early access version of the game. Subnautica 2 comes to Steam Early Access on May 14, 2026.

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