Subnautica

This article is about Subnautica. You may be looking for its stand-alone expansion, Below Zero or its in-development sequel, Subnautica 2.

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Subnautica is an open world survival game developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. It was first released in early access for PC on December 16, 2014 and released in full for PC on January 23rd, 2018. Early access for Xbox One was released on May 17th, 2016, with the full release for Xbox One and Playstation 4 releasing on December 6th, 2018. Subsequent console versions for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S were released on May 14, 2021 to coincide with the release of Subnautica: Below Zero.

Players take on the role of Ryley Robinson, the sole survivor of the Aurora's crash-landing on the uncharted, oceanic Planet 4546B. Players will explore the dangerous waters of 4546B by scuba diving and traveling in futuristic submersibles.

Summary

Descend into the depths of an alien underwater world filled with resources, creatures, wonder and threats. Craft equipment and submarines to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, cave systems, and more – All while trying to survive.

Gallery

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• Subnautica Dangerous Creatures Update
• Subnautica Aurora Interior Expansion
• Subnautica PRAWN Update
• Subnautica Power Nap Update
• Subnautica Machinery Update
• Subnautica Gameplay - Early Access
• Subnautica Crash Sequence
• Subnautica Farming Update
• Subnautica Official Launch Trailer

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Soundtrack

• Main article: Subnautica OST

Merchandise

Official Subnautica merchandise can be purchased at Unknown World Entertainment's Redbubble store.

Subnautica 2.0

Subnautica was originally released on PC, Mac, PS4 and Xbox One in 2018. Versions for the Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S were released in May 2021 alongside the release of Subnautica: Below Zero.

In October 2021, Unknown Worlds announced that it was working on technical improvements to the code base of the Subnautica series, such as retooling the save system, and merging the code base of the games across all available platforms to unified versions of Unity. Subnautica would be updated with architecture, performance improvements, and bug fixes from Below Zero. Save bugs on PS5 were to be addressed, as is excessive screen tearing on the PS5 version of Subnautica.

There were also plans to update Subnautica over time with a number of quality-of-life features/accessibility improvements that made sense for the game from the ones that were developed and implemented for Below Zero.

On June 15, 2022, Unknown Worlds posted a blog update on how work was progressing.

On Dec. 13, 2022, Unknown Worlds released the 2.0 version of the game, entitled the "Living Large Update".

Reception

On Metacritic, Subnautica received "generally favorable" reviews getting a metascore of 87/100 on PC, 80/100 on PS4, and 81/100 on Xbox One.

Ian Birnbaum of PC Gamer described Subnautica as an "underwater Minecraft", remarking that "with an experienced developer at the helm and a limitless variety of the oceans to play with, it’s going to take a lot for Subnautica to go badly wrong. As the toolbox gets deeper and the shape of the end-game gets set, Subnautica will be a unique example of the ways survival can be tense, rewarding, and fun." Marsh Davies of Rock, Paper, Shotgun praised the rewarding nature of exploring the world of Subnautica, but criticized the "arbitrariness" and lack of intuition in some of the in-game recipes.

Subnautica is heavily praised by many Youtubers for being very original.

T.J Hafer from IGN gave the game a 9.1/10. Commenting that Subnautica was one of the few games he would love to wipe from his past and start over fresh. Claiming the game to be "legitimately terrifying", similar to when playing horror games such as Amnesia or Outlast. Praising the uniqueness of the biomes, as their visual identities and soundtracks helped solidify their uniqueness. He also gave praise to the audio, claiming it helped him in identifying which biome he was in and what creature he was dealing with.

Hafer heavily gave praise to the Story, explaining that Subnautica does a very good job at telling a compelling story, noting the complexity and nuance of a great sci-fi film. He also complimented the well-written journal entries and audio logs with uncommonly high-quality voice acting. T.J commended the fact that the story was not a forced element, and players could explore and progress at their own pace.

Hafer criticized that sometimes the progression dragged at spots. He furthermore gave notice to when his immersion was disrupted by pop-in and jarring levels of detail changes. claiming he would have loved more options to help smooth it out.

Overall, T.J came to the verdict that Subnautica is a template for what open-world survival games should strive to be, as the game was fantastical, fresh, and frightening. [1]

System Requirements

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Minimum

OS	Windows Vista SP2 or newer, 64-bit
Processor	Intel Haswell 2 cores / 4 threads @ 2.5GHz or equivalent
Memory	4 GB RAM
Graphics	Intel HD 4600 or equivalent - This includes most GPUs scoring greater than 950pts in the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark
DirectX	Version 11
Storage	20 GB available space

Recommended

OS	Windows Vista SP2 or newer, 64-bit
Processor	Intel Haswell 4 cores / 4 threads @ 3.2GHz or equivalent
Memory	8 GB RAM
Graphics	Nvidia GTX 550 ti or equivalent, 2GB VRAM
DirectX	Version 11
Storage	20 GB available space

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Minimum

OS	OS X 10.9 Mavericks
Processor	Intel Haswell 2 cores / 4 threads @ 2.5GHz or equivalent
Memory	4 GB RAM
Graphics	Intel HD 4600 or equivalent
Storage	20 GB available space

Recommended

OS	OS X 10.9 Mavericks
Processor	Intel Haswell 4 cores / 4 threads @ 3.2GHz or equivalent
Memory	8 GB RAM
Graphics	Nvidia GTX 550 Ti or equivalent, 2GB VRAM
Storage	20 GB available space

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External Links

• Subnautica on Steam
• Subnautica on Epic Store
• Subnautica on Nintendo Switch
• Subnautica on PS4 & 5
• Subnautica on Xbox One & Series X|S

Trivia

• Subnautica shares the same universe as the Natural Selection series.
  • This is further supported, as the company Alterra is a manufacturer of various supplies in all games by Unknown Worlds
• Subnautica is titled “Descend” in early prototypes of the game.
• Player can unlock Earliest Access 2014 Version and Early Access 2014 Version in "Check Code" by entering code "subnauticaearlyaccess" in Steam Properties.
• The original pax 2014 version can be accessed by putting pax2014version in the "check code"

References

• Subnautica on Wikipedia