Subnautica 2 is set to launch in early access next month on May 14. It comes after a long and messy pre-release period, including the firing of executives, a legal battle over a prospective $250 million payout, a reinstated CEO, and a release window announcement before that CEO could properly review the game.
Part of that mess was a delay — in July 2025 Krafton pushed back Subnautica 2’s early access release when it fired several Unknown Worlds Entertainment executives. Ousted Unknown Worlds co-founder and director Charlie Cleveland was one of the executives let go. At the time he argued Subnautica 2 was ready to launch. “We know that the game is ready for early access release and we know you’re ready to play it. And while we thought this was going to be our decision to make, at least for now, that decision is in Krafton’s hands,” he wrote in a post on Reddit.
Game design lead Anthony Gallegos knew whether Subnautica 2 could have launched in summer 2025 was a “fierce topic of debate among many different people,” he told Polygon over a video call in the lead-up to Subnautica 2’s launch. “I always am a fan of launching earlier and earlier. I think I’m more aligned with Charlie than other people. But, like I said, even among founder-level leadership, I think you would get varying opinions.” Gallegos called knowing when to launch into early access “one of those ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ things for a lot of people.”
With the additional development time between last summer and now, Unknown Worlds has been able to pack Subnautica 2 with more content. Gallegos was careful to note the studio doesn’t crunch, “but we did continue working really hard on adding significantly more content to the game.”
The content was always planned for the game, but additional development time allowed further refinement of what Unknown Worlds was working on. The downside, as Gallegos noted, was that the studio didn’t have “the same level of input we would’ve otherwise gotten from the community,” which is core to how Unknown Worlds likes to develop its games.
Gallegos called Subnautica 2 “probably the most robust and feature-rich early access launch the studio has ever done.” Creative media producer Scott MacDonald agreed, and noted the studio is happy with the response from people who’ve already been playing it.
Unknown Worlds knew Subnautica 2 was ready to dive off the deep end and be released when it was satisfied the game would have enough content for players to enjoy. “We had internal metrics that we operated on that we basically said, ‘We want to hit roughly this hour count of content [and] have these features in the game that we think will set it up as a solid foundation to build the game upon,’” MacDonald said.
As community response and feedback are so vital to the way Unknown Worlds works, the developers at the studio have appreciated the support from Subnautica players over the prior whirlwind year.
“It’s been really heartwarming to see the community really support the studio and the game,” MacDonald said. “That’s really helped the development team push through and get it to where it is.”
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