The hype for Subnautica 2 has been building for quite some time, and it appears as though, despite no longer working with its now-former publisher, Krafton, on the launch, Unknown Worlds has hit it big with the underwater survival-crafting game’s launch. On May 14, Subnautica 2 launched into Early Access on Steam, at a price of $29.99, and not even an hour after the game’s launch, it had reached the top of Steam’s Top Sellers chart, surpassing both Forza Horizon 6 and the ever-popular Counter-Strike 2 in revenue earned. According to SteamDB, the game’s peak concurrent player count had reached 453,445 players within the first hour after launch. Somewhat comically, but not unusually, the launch of Subnautica 2 has also resulted in a revival of both the original Subnautica, which, at the time of writing, sits in seventh place on the Steam Top Sellers chart, and Subnautica: Below Zero, which now sits in ninth place in the Top Sellers chart. The launch sales also come in spite of a recent leak that saw the entire game posted online in piracy forums and hosting sites ahead of launch.
Both predecessors to Subnautica 2 have seen a bit of a revival in peak concurrent player counts leading up to the launch of the new game, with Subnautica jumping from just under 9,000 peak concurrent daily players the week before launch to just over 24,000 peak concurrent players on May 14. Below Zero, on the other hand, went from 2,318 peak concurrent players on May 8 to 7,409 on May 14. It should be noted that many of the Subnautica 2 players reported by SteamDB are likely simply downloading and launching the game to get things set up, so, while it may not be an entirely accurate representation of actual player counts, it does indicate strong launch performance for the game. Reviews are also trending positively so far, with a 90% positive rating on Steam, although it should be noted that there are only 95 reviews at the time of writing.
