How to unlock new crafting blueprints in Subnautica 2

You’re only as good as your equipment in Subnautica 2; with the environment being so hostile, it takes specialized gear to be able to survive in the ambient conditions, and that’s before you throw in some very aggressive fish. Unlocking new crafting blueprints can give you what you need to forge ahead.

Expanding your repertoire of craftable equipment is key in survival games like Subnautica 2, but finding new blueprints works slightly differently here. It isn’t always the case that finding a new type of resource unlocks a particular tree of craftable parts. If you want to build new equipment, there are a few things you’ll need to find first.

Unlocking new blueprints in Subnautica 2

To unlock new equipment blueprints for your Fabricator, you have to scan objects of the same type. Occasionally, capturing new wildlife or finding a new material will unlock new blueprints in your Fabricator. For the most important upgrades, you have to use your scanner on the environment.

The flashlight is likely the first piece of equipment you will unlock – you will find a broken flashlight in the cave below your lifepod. When you scan the broken flashlight, you will notice a bar on the scanner: this is how much progress you have made in unlocking that particular bit of equipment. Some items only require one scan, while others have multiple segments where you will need to find several individual items of the same type.

Core pieces of equipment are usually found inside wrecks or inside boxes at outposts. There are typically more scan points than you need to unlock a crafting recipe, so don’t be concerned about missing anything. Just keep searching, and you will find what you’re looking for.

That’s all you need to unlock new blueprints in Subnautica 2. We have a guide on how to unlock the Subnautica 2 Tadpole here – it’s the most important tool for exploration, as it will give you a supply of oxygen and protection against anything that might want to cause you harm… which, it turns out, is a lot of things in the ocean.