Subnautica 2, the third Subnautica game, hits early access in 2025 and finally brings multiplayer to the survival game series

Today's Xbox Partner Showcase gave us a look at Subnautica 2 - which is, of course, the third game in the Subnautica series. The new, direct sequel is set to launch into early access in 2025, and it's finally answering fans' prayers by adding multiplayer.

The brief trailer for Subnautica 2 appears to be all cinematics, but it sets the tone for the new game with a brief look at a colorful, inviting coral reef dive followed up by the most terrifying deep sea encounter you can imagine. The big tease here is that we see multiple characters working together, a clear example of the long-awaited addition of cooperative multiplayer for up to four players.

Subnautica now officially hits early access in 2025, and it'll be available day one on Game Pass for Xbox Series X|S and PC. The devs have confirmed that it'll also be available on PC via Steam and Epic, but there's no word of a PS5 version just yet.

In a new Xbox Wire blog we see a handful of screenshots alongside confirmation that we'll "traverse beyond Planet 4546B." Some of this info has already been teased out by publisher Krafton in recent years, though developer Unknown Worlds has had to do some damage control on certain pieces of that messaging.

It's somehow been 10 years since the original Subnautica hit early access, and six years since it went 1.0. It was originally meant to get a major DLC pack after launch, but that expansion eventually morphed into Subnautica: Below Zero, a full-blown spin-off that hit early access in 2019 and went 1.0 in 2021. Early access periods have clearly been massive boons for these games - for my money, the original Subnautica is the best survival game out there and well worth digging into even if you don't generally click with the genre. 

Subnautica 2 teasers may be hiding in plain sight in the first underwater survival game, as one dev not-so-subtly hints that something fishy is afoot.