Subnautica

Subnautica is a game made by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. Subnautica allows the player to explore an uncharted alien planet by scuba diving and traveling in submarines. The planet is almost all water, meaning the player must scuba dive for almost all resources such as metal and upgrades.

Summary
Descend into the depths of an alien underwater world filled with resources, creatures, wonder and threats. Craft equipment and submarines to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, cave systems, and more – All while trying to survive.

Parent page
Subnautica is a first-person video game set in the future on an aquatic uncharted planet created and released by Unknown Worlds Entertainment, that blends the traits of the survival and the exploration genres. Subnautica hit Steam on December 16, 2014 as part of the Early Access program and was fully released on January 23, 2018. The game is available on PC (Steam & Humble Bundle), VR (Steam and Oculus Home) and Xbox One. A version for the PlayStation 4 was looked into for after V1.0 and was released December 6, 2018. Due to the developer-centric update policies on Steam, that version receives updates the earliest.

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General Information

 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Title(s):
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Subnautica
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Publisher:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Unknown Worlds Entertainment
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Description:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Subnautica begins with the crash of the Aurora on Planet 4546B, a planet completely covered in water, in the late 22nd century. There is one sole longterm survivor, who is the protagonist of the story. It is then up to the player to make it through the initial days with a partially broken Lifepod 5 and a few resources at their disposal, improve their situation by learning about the alien environment and gathering resources, building better equipment, and maybe even find a way home. If so chosen, the player can also start an investigation into what happened to the Aurora and what secrets Planet 4546B holds.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Similar Games:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Biosys, Submerged, and Ark: Survival Evolved. Beyond Good &amp; Evil is partially the inspiration to the scanner and the camera function of the PDA.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Genre(s):
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |The game puts together survival and exploration elements. To quote Wikipedia, survival games "are a subgenre of action video games that generally start the player with minimal resources in a hostile, open-world environment, and require them to collect resources, craft tools, weapons, and shelter, and survive as long as possible", whereas exploration games "are narrative-focused [adventure games] that allow players to experience their story through exploration and discovery".
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Playthrough Length:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Subnautica offers a static world of 3*3*1.7km and random generation is exclusively present in the spawn points of various resources and the exact starting position of Lifepod 5. There is no multiplayer, and there never will be. If the player knows where to go and rushes through the essential parts of the story and useful blueprints, the game can be completed in 20 hours. Players that go for the full experience will find themselves at 40+ hours.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Difficulty:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |There are four game modes available: Creative, Freedom, Survival, and Hardcore. Creative mode makes no demands on the player at all. Freedom mode requires managing oxygen, health, energy, and hull integrity. Upon death, the player respawns in Lifepod 5 or in the last Seabase/Cyclops visited. Survival mode adds hunger and thirst. Hardcore is identical to Survival except that it features permadeath.
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |The game puts together survival and exploration elements. To quote Wikipedia, survival games "are a subgenre of action video games that generally start the player with minimal resources in a hostile, open-world environment, and require them to collect resources, craft tools, weapons, and shelter, and survive as long as possible", whereas exploration games "are narrative-focused [adventure games] that allow players to experience their story through exploration and discovery".
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Playthrough Length:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Subnautica offers a static world of 3*3*1.7km and random generation is exclusively present in the spawn points of various resources and the exact starting position of Lifepod 5. There is no multiplayer, and there never will be. If the player knows where to go and rushes through the essential parts of the story and useful blueprints, the game can be completed in 20 hours. Players that go for the full experience will find themselves at 40+ hours.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Difficulty:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |There are four game modes available: Creative, Freedom, Survival, and Hardcore. Creative mode makes no demands on the player at all. Freedom mode requires managing oxygen, health, energy, and hull integrity. Upon death, the player respawns in Lifepod 5 or in the last Seabase/Cyclops visited. Survival mode adds hunger and thirst. Hardcore is identical to Survival except that it features permadeath.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Difficulty:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |There are four game modes available: Creative, Freedom, Survival, and Hardcore. Creative mode makes no demands on the player at all. Freedom mode requires managing oxygen, health, energy, and hull integrity. Upon death, the player respawns in Lifepod 5 or in the last Seabase/Cyclops visited. Survival mode adds hunger and thirst. Hardcore is identical to Survival except that it features permadeath.

Although combat is an option, it is generally the lesser pick compared to stealth and speed. All but the largest creatures can be evaded or outrun with a little practice. The game does not have intentional jumpscares, but a few creatures such as Warpers and Crabsnakes can cause them. Exploring maze-like structures such as caves and wrecks demands navigational skill and proper preparation to not run out of oxygen. Hunger and thirst are a core concern early on and it might take a while before steady solutions are acquired.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Security Concerns:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Being a singleplayer-only game, Subnautica has no security risks.
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Gameplay Information

 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |ESRB Rating(s):
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |E 10+ (everybody age 10 and over)
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |PEGI Rating(s):
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |PEGI 7 (everybody age 7 and over)
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |ACB Rating(s):
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |PG (everybody age 15 and over)
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Content Labels:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Fantasy Violence, Mild Language (ESRB/PEGI); Scary Scenes, Mild Coarse Language (ACB)
 * colspan="2" |
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Content Labels:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Fantasy Violence, Mild Language (ESRB/PEGI); Scary Scenes, Mild Coarse Language (ACB)
 * colspan="2" |
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Content Information

 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Violence:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |Subnautica does contain very few conventional weapons and the few there are have limitations. This is because the game tries to promote solutions other than violence. One can still kill or be killed by wildlife or die from environmental hazards such as radiation and lava geysers. In case damage is sustained, the protagonist lets out a muffled scream, the sides of the screen flash red, and a small amount of red blood is lost. Death due to lack of oxygen begins with a darkening screen followed by a dramatic tune if an oxygen source isn't reached after a few more seconds. Creatures that are killed currently bleed yellow and either respawn or revive some time after the player leaves their territory. The backstory of Subnautica contains the deaths of about 170 people and an unknown number of other sapient lifeforms. Data Downloads and materials left by them can be found, but there are no corpses.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Language:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |The word "Damn" is said a few times in some of the Degasi Survivor's PDAs, as well as "what the hell" in a lifepod transmission.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Sexual Themes and Nudity:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |There are no sexual themes or nudity.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Drugs and Alcohol:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |A few bottles that appear to have held alcohol are lying on the floors of the Aurora and within the Deep Grand Reef Degasi Base. These cannot be interacted with and are for decoration only.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Crude Humor or Comic Mischief:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |The Stillsuit reclaims bodily fluids and cleans it for consumption. The databank entry includes such lines as "Because drinking reclaimed urine is better than death by dehydration." A resource to collect is Alien Feces.
 * }
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |A few bottles that appear to have held alcohol are lying on the floors of the Aurora and within the Deep Grand Reef Degasi Base. These cannot be interacted with and are for decoration only.
 * style="padding:5px; width:30%" |Crude Humor or Comic Mischief:
 * style="padding:5px; width:70%" |The Stillsuit reclaims bodily fluids and cleans it for consumption. The databank entry includes such lines as "Because drinking reclaimed urine is better than death by dehydration." A resource to collect is Alien Feces.
 * }
 * }

Developers
The crew of Subnautica

Directors & Producer
Charlie Cleveland=

Website: http://www.charliecleveland.com

Charlie attended Case Western Reserve University and received a B.S. in Computer Engineering. He worked as a software engineer at IBM, Papyrus, CogniToy and Stainless Steel Studios, on Grand Prix Legends, MindRover and Empire Earth. In May 2001, he left Stainless Steel to start writing Natural Selection.

Charlie has contributed writings to Game Developer Magazine and Game Design Perspectives and spoke at Casuality (2006). He also spoke at the Game Developer's Conference in:


 * 2011 (The 1 Hour Video Game MBA)
 * 2013 (The Velveteen Marine).

Max McGuire=

While still in high school Max worked as the assistant to Dr. Benoit Mandelbrot at IBM Research. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 2001 with a B.S. in Mathematics and a double major in Computer Science, Max joined Iron Lore Entertainment (Game Developer Choice Best New Studio) as the first employee.

While at Iron Lore Entertainment, Max served as the Lead Engine Programmer and held a key role in developing the technology and tools behind their first two titles, Titan Quest and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.

Cory Strader=

Cory attended the Massachusetts College of Art, majoring in Illustration. He worked at Stainless Steel Studios as a digital artist for over five years doing 3D modeling, texturing and concept work on Empire Earth, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World and Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War. He then worked as Senior Texture Artist and Concept Art on Lair and several unannounced titles at Factor Five.

He and Charlie started working on Natural Selection together in August 2000 and his artwork has been featured several times in Spectrum and Expose.

Hugh Jeremy=

Hugh Jeremy was head of PR for Subnautica and for a time Subnautica: Below Zero. He is no longer employed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.

Animators
Colin Knueppel=

He is a nerdy farm kid who turned into an animator / tech. He has worked on Mass Effect 1 cinematics, BioShock Infinite in-game sequences, most of the Natural Selection 2 rigging and currently animation lead on Subnautica. He enjoys walks in the park and long-shot FPS melee kills.

Louis Karim=

As soon as he graduated from Engineering school, Louis decided to go down a more artistic path. He started by learning character modelling on his first job, but realized that animation was his true calling soon enough. He attended Animation Mentor, and since graduating has worked as an animator on movies, TV series and commercials, in countries including Singapore, Russia, Lebanon and Bahrain. He is currently an animator and rigger on Subnautica.

Brandt Wojak=

Brandt graduated from Madison College, with an associate degree in Animation and Concept development. He joined the offsite team in the summer of 2012 working on animations for Natural Selection 2.

Check out some of his works at:
 * https://www.youtube.com/user/Bwojakification

Scott MacDonald=

Otherwise known as Obraxis, Scott hails originally from Carlisle UK, close to the Scottish border. Having worked in Film & TV, he now works in Games remotely from the South Wales, UK. He can be often found frequenting shops late at night in his daily pursuit of yet more coffee, to fuel his typical animator caffeine habit.

Brian Cummings=

Brian (Alpha) joined the team in late 2009 after graduating from the Art Institute of California San Francisco. Before moving here, he worked as a contract 3D Artist on two published PC titles in Birmingham, Alabama.

Initially hired to help with managing the art pipeline, Brian now fills the gap between artists and engine. He has also worked as the editor for several Natural Selection 2 cinematics including the Fade Reveal, Lerk Reveal and Gorge Belly Slide video.

Software Engineers
Jonas Bötel=

Website: http://lumpn.de

After almost dropping out of university twice to make computer games instead of learning about skolemization and formal verification, Jonas now holds a master's degree in Computer Science and makes computer games. Hah!

Unbeknownst to Charlie Jonas’ career at Unknown Worlds started as a mapper for Natural Selection 1 where he managed to finish one single room. Encouraged by this huge success he ran the fastest NS1 servers in Europe on launch day and still remembers sneaking into the university's data center to pull this off like it was yesterday.

Jonas fixes the bugs, optimizes performance, causes a mess, and wears the “I broke the build” T-shirt with great pride. He enjoys traveling and sometimes does a decent Count von Count impersonation including bats and lightning.

Scott Thunelius=

Scott is a coder and 3D artist. He's spent most of his career working on MMORPGs and now happily resides deep in the underwater landscape of Subnautica's codebase. When not making games he's playing music and systematically attempting put every BBQ joint to be found in Texas out of business with his insatiable love of brisket.

Andreas Urwalek=

Game programming (Austria)

David Kalina= David Kalina is the co-founder and co-owner of the award-winning game studio Tiger Style. Kalina started Tiger Style with Randy Smith in 2009, and released the award-winning game Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, and most recently the Independent Games Festival nominated game Waking Mars.

Kalina is a games industry veteran, previously working on projects such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Deus Ex: Invisible War, and the Thief series. Kalina currently resides in Austin, Texas.

World Designers
Michael Schouten=

Michael was originally a Natural Selection 1 map contributor. In 2007 he graduated from Glasgow University, and worked as a functionality tester before joining the off-site team in 2010. He was hired as a level designer and has contributed towards several Natural Selection 2 maps. Currently he is developing environments for Subnautica.

Oliver Hobbs=

Oli joined the offsite team in June 2009 as a mapper for Natural Selection 2. He spends his time complaining, being cynical and drinking tea.

Andrew Jones=

Andrew attended Oxford Brookes University and received a BA in Architecture. He contributed to NS1 back in the day, and joined the UWE team in 2009, initially to help maintain the website. He soon moved on to art and level design, and nobody had the heart to tell him to pack it in.

When not making or playing games, Andrew's many hobbies include brick-spotting, desperation and breathing. He lives in London.

Jake Smith=

Jake is an artist with an associate degree in Computer Animation, and a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from the University of Utah. He began working on a custom map for NS2, which caught the attention of Charlie and Cory, and eventually led to a position working to further develop this level.

Jake Smith is no longer employed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.

Kiel McDonald=

Liam Tart=

Liam worked together with UWE on Natural Selection II. After that Liam went of to work on Alien Isolation at Creative Assembly, then he was at Sony for a bit working on PSVR. He went back to CA to work on Halo Wars and now he is rejoining UWE.

Check out some of his work here or on his official website.

Concept Artists
Cory Strader= Cory attended the Massachusetts College of Art, majoring in Illustration. He worked at Stainless Steel Studios as a digital artist for over five years doing 3D modeling, texturing and concept work on Empire Earth, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World and Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War. He then worked as Senior Texture Artist and Concept Art on Lair and several unannounced titles at Factor Five.

He and Charlie started working on Natural Selection together in August 2000 and his artwork has been featured several times in Spectrum and Expose.

Pat Presley= Pat Presley is a freelance conceptual design artist who drew several creature and biome concepts for Subnautica. His designs for the former include the Sea Emperor Leviathan, the Reefback Leviathan, the Grand Reef and the Lava Castle.

Alex Ries= Alex Ries was hired after the completion of Subnautica V1.0 to work on concept art for the future expansion of Subnautica.

He was hired after numerous comments on his DeviantArt posts of people saying that his art reminded them of Subnautica or that he should work on the game, after contacting Unknown Worlds he was hired. Mikhail Rakhmatullin= Mikhail is a freelance concept artist, whose full participation in the creation of Subnautica's concept art remains unconfirmed. His only confirmed creations are the designs of the Reaper Leviathan and of the Prawn Suit.


 * ArtStation account

FX Artist
Sylvain Hel= Sylvain joined Ubisoft Paris as a 3d environment artist on GRAW 2 before enjoying particles and visual effects on Redsteel 2, Raving Rabbids TV Party and Ghost Recon Future Soldier. Looking for new experiences with indie studios he started to work on Natural Selection 2 late 2011.

Media
Simon Chylinski=

Sound and music designer on Subnautica (excluding Below Zero) and Natural Selection 2. He is no longer employed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.

Check out some of his works at:


 * Soundcloud
 * Youtube
 * Spotify

Lukas Nowaczek=

Lukas is another employee with his roots in the community. Since he joined us in October 2012 he works on all kinds of web applications and websites that improve workflow in UWE or serve our players. He spends most of his free time learning new stuff, playing too many games or reading books. He also enjoys his journey to find the perfect craft beer.

Jessica Damerst=

Jess is a web developer that spends her time in preparation for the next update, and also specializes in community and update announcement material. She also writes tools but rather slowly due to Unknown Worlds continually asking her to prioritize the update sites.

Her skills include sweet talking humans and computers and crying herself to sleep when it doesn't work.

Voice Actors
Lani Minella=


 * Lani Minella's website
 * Lani Minella's Twitter Account

Lani is the voice actor for the Sea Emperor Leviathan. She has also done voice acting for Natural Selection and Natural Selection 2, other games made by Unknown Worlds.

Tony Porter=


 * Tony Porter's website

Tony is the voice actor of Avery Quinn.

Lorelei King=


 * Lorelei King's website
 * Lorelei King's twitter

Lorelei King is the voice actor of Marguerit Maida and a crew member of Lifepod 6.

James Backway=


 * James Backway's Agency
 * James Backway's Twitter

James Backway is the voice actor of Bart Torgal and Berkeley.

Christopher Godwin=


 * Christopher Godwin

Christopher Godwin is the voice actor of Paul Torgal, Captain Hollister and a Lifepod 7 crew member.

Ramon Tikaram= Ramon Tikaram is the voice actor of Second Officer Keen, Ozzy and Danby and crew of Lifepod 3.
 * IMDb page

Eleanor Matsuura= Eleanor Matsuura is the voice actor for CTO Yu, a crew member of Lifepod 3 and a passenger of Lifepod 6.

Simon Chylinski= Simon Chylinski is both the voice actor for the player and the sound designer for Subnautica. His voice is also edited to make the sounds of the Peeper.

Neebs Gaming= Jon Etheridge (left) and Brent Triplett (right) make a cameo appearance as voice actors for a radio message from the Alterra HQ. Brent and Jon played Subnautica on their popular gaming channel Neebs Gaming during the early access phase of the game.
 * Soundcloud
 * Youtube
 * Spotify

Affiliates
Tom Jubert=

Freelance Narrative Designer.

FOX 3D Entertainment=

Fox3D has successfully cooperated with game developers of all sizes and world-class publishers from North America, Europe and Asia. Our aim is to create high-quality projects on a global scale.

Models

 * Fox3D on Sketchfab

Soundtrack

 * Main article: Subnautica OST

Merchandise
Subnautica merchandise can be purchased at the official UnknownWorlds merchandise redbubble store.

Future
Subnautica was originally released on PC, Mac, PS4 and Xbox One in 2018. Versions for the Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S were released in May 2021 alongside the release of Subnautica: Below Zero.

As of October 2021, Unknown Worlds is working on technical improvements on the code base of the Subnautica series, such as retooling the save system, and merging the code base of the games across all availabe platforms to unified versions of Unity. Subnautica is to be updated with architecture, performance improvements, and bug fixes from Below Zero. Save bugs on PS5 are to addressed, as is excessive screen tearing on the PS5 version of Subnautica.

There are also plans to update Subnautica over time with a number of quality of life features/accessibility improvements that make sense for the game from the ones that were developed and implemented for Below Zero.

Reception
On Metacritic, Subnautica received "generally favorable" reviews getting a metascore of 87/100 on PC, 80/100 on PS4, and 81/100 on Xbox One.

Ian Birnbaum of PC Gamer described Subnautica as an "underwater Minecraft", remarking that "with an experienced developer at the helm and a limitless variety of the oceans to play with, it’s going to take a lot for Subnautica to go badly wrong. As the toolbox gets deeper and the shape of the end-game gets set, Subnautica will be a unique example of the ways survival can be tense, rewarding, and fun." Marsh Davies of Rock, Paper, Shotgun praised the rewarding nature of exploring the world of Subnautica, but criticized the "arbitrariness" and lack of intuition in some of the in-game recipes.

Subnautica is heavily praised by many Youtubers for being very original.

T.J Hafer from IGN gave the game a 9.1/10. Commenting that Subnautica was one of the few games he would love to wipe from his past and start over fresh. Claiming the game to be "legitimately terrifying", similar to when playing horror games such as Amnesia or Outlast. Praising the uniqueness of the biomes, as their visual identities and soundtracks helped solidify their uniqueness. He also gave praise to the audio, claiming it helped him in identifying which biome he was in and what creature he was dealing with.

Hafer heavily gave praise to the Story, explaining that Subnautica does a very good job at telling a compelling story, noting the complexity and nuance of a great sci-fi film. He also complimented the well-written journal entries and audio logs with uncommonly high-quality voice acting. T.J commended the fact that the story was not a forced element, and players could explore and progress at their own pace.

Hafer criticized that sometimes the progression dragged at spots. He furthermore gave notice to when his immersion was disrupted by pop-in and jarring levels of detail changes. claiming he would have loved more options to help smooth it out.

Overall, T.J came to the verdict that Subnautica is a template for what open-world survival games should strive to be, as the game was fantastical, fresh, and frightening. 

Mods
Various users of the game have produced modifications for the game. None of them are endorsed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment or this wiki and are not guaranteed to be high-quality, functional, or safe. There is, however, a Discord for mods, where players can discuss mods.
 * Nitrox, a mod that enables multiplayer.
 * Nexus Mods, a website that hosts mods, including some for Subnautica.

Concept Arts

 * Main article: Concept art

Videos

 * Visit official Subnautica Youtube for more videos.

System Requirements
Windows=

Mac OS X=

Trivia

 * Subnautica shares the same universe as the Natural Selection series.
 * This is further supported, as the company Alterra is a manufacturer of various supplies in all games by Unknown Worlds.