Subnautica 2 Is Making A Huge Mistake With its Release Plans (2025)

Subnautica 2 is launching sometime this year, but developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment is making one major mistake in its launch plans. The game will be a sequel to the successful Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero, which introduced the franchise's unique take on survival horror. The games place players in the middle of a massive body of water on a strange planet, and challenge them not only to survive but also to figure out the underlying story as they do so.

The upcoming game will continue the story on a brand-new planet, this time made in Unreal Engine 5. This means that fans can experience the dread of underwater exploration with new biomes to discover and new monsters lurking in the depths, all presented in beautiful high-resolution graphics. There's only one problem: Many fans of the original game won't be able to experience Subnautica 2 on launch because the game might not release on PlayStation consoles.

Subnautica 2 Is Making The Mistake Of Overlooking Part Of Its Fanbase

PlayStation Fans Are Left Out Of The Game's Launch

As a huge fan of the original game, I was most excited about the cooperative multiplayer aspect of the upcoming game, which will allow up to four players to work together. For the first time, my husband and I could experience the thrills and chills of diving for supplies and avoiding the unkillable Leviathans together, and not just watch each other fail at both like we did for the first two games.

The only problem is that we play almost all our co-op games on the PlayStation 5, and at this point, Subnautica 2 doesn't seem to be coming to Sony's console. Subnautica was a single-player experience, but many fans (like me and my husband) enjoyed it on the PlayStation, and we were hoping to get to do the same with the next game.

Unfortunately, the problem goes even deeper than that. The multiplayer aspect of Subnautica 2 will likely be online-only, not split-screen. While my gaming laptop can handle the game just fine, my husband's old work Dell might implode on trying to run the game. Ultimately, this means that not only do we not get to play the game on the same console as its predecessor, but we also won't get to experience the aspect of the title that we were most looking forward to.

Over the past year, Microsoft and Sony have been moving toward eradicating console exclusivity, with games that would previously have been exclusives like Doom: The Dark Ages releasing on both Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Snubbing the PlayStation entirely seems like an odd choice, if that's what Unknown Worlds has decided. With both Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero available on PlayStation consoles, it would just make sense for the upcoming game to be, as well.

PlayStation Players May Still Get To Play Subnautica 2

They Might Just Have To Wait A While

There's still hope for fans of Subnautica who hope to enjoy the game on a PlayStation console. Although the developer hasn't said this explicitly, there's a possibility that Subnautica 2 will be released on the PS5 (and maybe PS4) when it fully launches.

At the moment, the game is preparing to enter Early Access on PC and Xbox Series X|S. This phase will allow Unknown Worlds Entertainment to gather information and feedback from fans and improve the game accordingly, before releasing it as a complete game for everyone. Sony generally doesn't host Early Access games on its consoles, so many games have to wait until they're fully released before they can make the leap onto one of Sony's consoles.

This is, in fact, what the first game in the series did. Subnautica was released in Early Access in December 2014 and didn't come to the PS4 until a full two years later, in December 2018. This time around, Unknown Worlds has stated that the Early Access phase won't last as long this time, with the full game ready to release sometime in 2025.

At best, this means that my husband and I and the thousands of other PlayStation fans of the Subnautica franchise will be able to play the game sometime this year. At worst, we'll all have to watch wistfully as non-PS5 fans get to play the game for, potentially, years before we can dive into Subnautica 2 for ourselves. I'm hopeful it'll be the former, but it's hard to tell right now if the PlayStation has been slighted once again or if we're just a bit late to the underwater party.

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Subnautica 2

Survival

Adventure

Systems

Developer(s)

Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Publisher(s)

Krafton

Engine

Unreal Engine 5

Multiplayer

Online Co-Op

Franchise

Subnautica

Number of Players

1-4

Early Access Release

2025

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