The developers of Subnautica 2 say the game will enter early access in a bigger and more polished state than any previous early access launch from Unknown Worlds. The pressure is obvious: it is currently Steam’s most-wanted game, with more than 5 million users adding it to their wishlist before launch. Still, the studio is not treating the early access release as a finish line, but as the beginning of another long collaboration with its community.
Calling Subnautica 2 highly anticipated before its early access launch would barely cover the scale of the situation. It is the most-wanted game on Steam, and more than 5 million users have added it to their wishlist ahead of release. For Unknown Worlds, that creates a strange combination of opportunity and pressure. Players are not simply waiting for another survival game. They are waiting for the next version of the alien ocean exploration fantasy that helped turn the first Subnautica into something much bigger than its early reception suggested.
Speaking to PC Gamer, game design lead Anthony Gallegos and creative media producer Scott MacDonald said Subnautica 2 should be the studio’s strongest early access launch so far. Gallegos put it directly: “The game that we’re putting out right now is bigger and more polished than anything the studio’s ever done for a first early access release.” That does not mean the team sees the launch build as complete. Gallegos said the studio wants a mix of features it feels confident about and other elements where it will explicitly ask the community what it thinks and use that feedback to help drive development.
That approach has history at Unknown Worlds. The original Subnautica was one of the early examples of Steam early access development done in an unusually open way. Its 2014 early access launch was not instantly treated as a masterpiece, but the studio’s transparent production process and steady use of player feedback helped shape it into the celebrated 1.0 release that arrived in 2018. Gallegos said that openness was one of the reasons he wanted to join the studio in the first place. “One of the things that attracted me to the studio – and attracted many of the people that work here – was that it was always okay with putting out early ideation because they wanted to do open development, where the community gets to see something that’s unfinished intentionally so they can provide feedback and have a real impact on the final product,” he said. According to him, the team is still trying to preserve that.
As with earlier games in the series, players will have access to a community feedback and feature idea board for Subnautica 2. They can submit ideas, vote on suggestions, and track which proposals Unknown Worlds plans to implement, as well as which ones the studio has decided not to pursue. The Subnautica 2 Nolt feedback board is already live, meaning the team is already getting a sense of what players want prioritized in updates after launch.
MacDonald said the community is already posting ideas and suggestions, but the real test will come once the game is in players’ hands. “They’re already posting ideas and things for us to do, but as soon as the game comes out, we’re going to be able to validate an awful lot of what we thought were good ideas,” he said. He added that he is also sure players will be vocal about what they dislike, because the community usually makes that clear.
At the same time, Unknown Worlds does not want to become a studio that reacts blindly to every complaint. Gallegos said the team is conscious of the need to maintain its own creative direction, even while seeking a large amount of player feedback. Developers have to remember, he said, that feedback represents “less than a percent of your actual audience, especially when you’re launching a game of this size.” It is a valuable signal, but it is not the same thing as handing over direction of the game.
Gallegos described that boundary plainly: “I never want us to be the kneejerk people that say ‘five people complained about this and five people put a thumbs up on Discord, so we have to change it.’ No, there are many things about the game that we feel confident in and we’re happy to stick to our guns on.” He said the studio is still the developer, while the community gets a direct way to communicate and provide insights the team might otherwise miss. That makes the early access launch of Subnautica 2 less of a final arrival and more of the first public stage in another long, community-shaped development process.
Source: PC Gamer
