On the eve of Subnautica 2’s early access launch, calling it hotly anticipated would be a wild understatement. It’s Steam’s most-wanted game, as over 5 million users have added it to their wishlist in the run-up to launch. The masses yearn for the deep.
Despite the high-stakes hype, Subnautica 2’s developers at Unknown Worlds say they’re confident that they’re setting a new watermark for the studio. In an interview with PC Gamer, Unknown Worlds game design lead Anthony Gallegos and creative media producer Scott MacDonald said Subnautica 2 should be the studio’s most impressive early access launch to date—but they’re just as excited for the dirty work of building out its future updates with the help of community input.
“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,” Gallegos said. “But as we go on, we want to have a mix of stuff that’s very polished that we feel very confident in, and other stuff that we’re like, ‘What do you guys think about this? Help us drive this development.'”
The original Subnautica was an early pioneer in Steam early access development, pursuing an open and transparent production process guided by player feedback that transformed its middling 2014 launch reception into a celebrated 1.0 release in 2018. Gallegos said that willingness to iterate openly is what drew him towards joining Unknown Worlds.
“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,” Gallegos said. “That’s something we’re still trying to preserve at the studio.”
As with prior games in the series, players can access a community feedback and feature idea board, where they can submit ideas, vote on suggestions, and track those that Unknown Worlds is planning to implement—as well as those the studio has opted against. Subnautica 2’s Nolt feedback board is already live, already providing the studio with an idea of what to prioritize for post-launch updates.
“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,” MacDonald said. “And I’m sure the community will let us know what they dislike as well, because they’re usually pretty loud.”
While Unknown Worlds has a history of seeking and implementing an ambitious amount of player feedback, Gallegos said the studio is conscious about maintaining its own creative vision. It’s important for developers to remember, he says, that player feedback represents “less than a percent of your actual audience, especially when you’re launching a game of this size”—it’s a valuable sentiment indicator to track, but it’s not a substitute for studio direction.
“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,” Gallegos said. “We’re still the developers. The community gets to have a way to communicate with us directly and provide insights that we might not otherwise see.”
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