Subnautica 2 roadmap – all planned updates so far

Unknown Worlds, the developers of the Subnautica series, expect its latest release to stay in early access for at least two years, which means you may have to wait a while for some important updates to come along. Fortunately, we had a glimpse of the Subnautica 2 roadmap, giving us a taste of what we can expect in the immediate future.

We attended a Subnautica 2 early access event where creative producer Scott MacDonald broke down all the updates we can expect from the survival game over the coming months. From helpful quality of life tweaks to highly requested features like proximity chat, here’s everything you can expect from the Subnautica 2 roadmap.

Subnautica 2 roadmap

Following Subnautica 2’s early access launch, Unknown Worlds has detailed what’s coming in the next two updates: the first update features mostly quality of life tweaks, whereas the second update is being labeled as a co-op-centric update. It’s unclear how quickly these early access updates will arrive, but we expect them to drop over the following months.

First update (Early Access 1.1)

Here are the changes set to arrive in Subnautica 2’s Early Access 1.1 update:

• Improvements to the bio-mod system, including more passive bio-mod slots
• Enhancements to blight encounters, vehicle docking, and fabrication systems
• Additional PDA data entries
• Tweaks to the voice log priority system
• A storage cache
• The ability to sprint inside bases

Second update (Early Access 1.2)

Here are the changes set to arrive in Subnautica 2’s Early Access 1.2 update:

• Improvements to the HUD systems
• Upgrades to the base building tools
• Pinned recipes system enhanced with colors to help identify missing materials
• Proximity voice chat
• Player emotes
• Player revive system
• Avatar customization options

Future updates

Beyond the first two early access updates, MacDonald was much more vague about what we should expect and when it’ll likely arrive. The plan is to expand the world with new biomes, creatures, leviathans, resources, tools, and a new vehicle. In addition to this, the developers plan on releasing the second chapter of the story in a future update.

This news from MacDonald largely aligns with the information on the Subnautica 2 Steam page. However, the listing on Steam refers to major updates that will introduce more substantial features like the ones MacDonald highlighted, which suggests the first two updates coming to the game are minor in comparison.

That’s everything there is to know about the Subnautica 2 roadmap. Stay tuned as we’ll update this guide with further information about the release dates of each update when we have it. While you wait for these updates, you can learn all about how Subnautica 2 multiplayer works, as well as all the changes to the base building mechanics as outlined in our helpful guide.