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Subnautica 2 Soars at Early Access Launch With 1 Million Sales in an Hour

The blowout debut reshapes the studio’s post-lawsuit outlook with a court-extended $250 million bonus now in play.

Overview

  • The sequel launched Thursday in Early Access on Steam, the Epic Games Store, the Microsoft Store, and Xbox Series X|S with day-one Xbox Game Pass and optional cross-play co-op for up to four players.
  • Unknown Worlds said the game sold one million copies in its first hour, and SteamDB tracked a concurrent peak near 467,000 players on Valve’s platform shortly after release.
  • The Early Access build costs $29.99 and ships with a large starter slice of the game, including more than 10 biomes and roughly a dozen to 20 hours of play, with solo play preserved alongside co-op.
  • Developers outlined near-term updates that add a sprint button, base-building and HUD tweaks, and biomod changes, followed by co-op features like proximity voice chat, emotes, and a revive system, as part of a planned two-to-three-year roadmap targeting full 1.0 in 2027–2028.
  • The launch follows a March court ruling that reinstated Unknown Worlds’ CEO and extended the window for a $250 million performance-based earnout from publisher Krafton, and coverage notes the early surge could help trigger that payout.