Subnautica 2 early access period will last at least 2 years, devs say in new interview

Expect at least two years of early access

That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been playing the series since it debuted. Subnautica was released into early access in 2014 and remained there until 2018 when it launched in full. The spin-off Subnautica: Below Zero was similarly in early access for a couple of years before a 1.0 release in 2021.

“It's built into the DNA of the studio,” game design lead Anthony Gallegos told Polygon in a video interview ahead of Subnautica 2’s release date reveal. Gallegos and creative media producer Scott MacDonald discussed how Unknown Worlds Entertainment takes advantage of early access when developing its games as well as how community feedback will influence Subnautica 2, continuing the studio’s tested recipe for success.

“Every single game that we've put out has been into early access in various degrees of polish,” MacDonald said. He’s been with Unknown Worlds since 2011 and worked on the previous two Subnautica games, Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero, which means MacDonald has seen how much the early access periods have shaped Unknown Worlds’ work firsthand.

“We've tended to have better success the earlier that we put something out because we can find out what players actually are interested in,” he said. We make our best guess, but until it's out into the public, you don't really have a clue on what people are going to fixate on, what fish would people prefer.”

Community feedback had a heavy influence on the original Subnautica. Initially, the crashed Aurora ship was just set dressing and Unknown Worlds didn’t intend to do much more with it. “Suddenly the community were like, ‘Oh, I really want to go there. I really want to explore the ship,’” MacDonald said. “So we built a giant out-of-water experience in that area.”

Gallegos said Unknown Worlds co-founder Charlie Cleveland (he was one of the executives Krafton let go in July of 2025) would often point out that Subnautica didn’t have food or water resources at launch, which have gone on to become staples of the survival-sim genre. “Those were sort of additions that were made because players were like, ‘I want to start worrying about food and cooking food,’” Gallegos said. “To me, that's exactly the best example. The community actually helped drive the core direction that the franchise became known for, as a survival game. I think that's awesome.”

MacDonald noted that with 2021’s Subnautica: Below Zero, early access was vital to shaping the game’s narrative. “We got really good feedback from players that they didn't like the story that much,” MacDonald said. “It's just super important for us to get the game out there and see what players think because then we can respond to what they like and make a better game.

The developers are constantly listening to feedback from fans on socials and in the games’ Discord communities. They make note of the loudest feedback that’s backed by the most players, and then have to decide if it aligns with their vision for the game — Unknown Worlds is still steering this ship, after all. “We're asking the communities to come along for the ride,” MacDonald said.

While MacDonald has been with the company for a long time, Gallegos is relatively new to the 25-year-old studio. When joining the team in 2021, he embraced Unknown Worlds’ approach to launching early. “It was always clear to me that the foundational belief was that the earlier they could get something into the hands of players, the better,” Gallegos said. “Even if it was rough and maybe not as finished as most people feel comfortable with, it was always better to get that early validation and rework from there alongside players than not.”

Launching in early access and having the community be so involved during development does have a drawback for Unknown Worlds. Both Gallegos and MacDonald highlighted how managing player expectations is key for when a game is still being tinkered with while in early access.

“To some degree, that's an impossible task to fully get right,” Gallegos said. He noted how there’s always going to be a subset of players who hear about an interesting new game on Steam, intend to buy it, but back away because it’s unfinished.

MacDonald said most Subnautica players came to it after it hit 1.0, so the studio now faces the challenge of making sure, as the franchise has grown more popular over time, prospective Subnautica 2 players know they’re getting into the game at its earliest possible entry point for the public.

“How do we both communicate to players that it's not quite finished, but it's good enough for you to be able to enjoy it for a good number of hours?” he said. “You have to make sure you move closer to where players are and then keep them informed as well as possible.”

Subnautica 2 will be in early access for two-to-three years, according to the developers. Updates — both game-changing and bug-fixing — will be released periodically over that time. As the series is story-driven, Subnautica 2 will launch out of early access and into 1.0 when “we've offered you the chance to roll credits on it,” Gallegos said. “Which doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the end of your playtime with it, but it is a moment to conclude the narrative that we wanted to tell.”

MacDonald echoed that sentiment. He wants players to be able to “play it, finish it, uninstall it, and be like, ‘I got my Subnautica 2 experience out of it.’”