The open-world underwater title Subnautica and its sequel Subnautica: Below Zero may be undergoing some big changes. The studio behind the series, Unknown Studios, recently posted details regarding future updates for both games. This includes changes to the Nintendo Switch version of the games and how they run in general no matter where they're played. While these changes are currently ongoing, it's unknown when they will finally be implemented.
Subnautica, Below Zero, And Updates
Released in 2014, Subnautica quickly became one of the most popular open-world games on the market. Following numerous updates, a sequel titled Subnautica: Below Zero came out in 2019. Despite the amount of effort that went into the game's functionality and appearance, its large size made it prone to technical issues due to tech debt. Unknown Studios continues work to fix this as announced on their official website. Below Zero is taking priority due to it being the more recent release, but they assure the community that they have not forgotten the first Subnautica. Their efforts are being focused on improving how the games play overall.
The Subnautica series is notable for setting its games in a world that is mostly water. Both the first and Below Zero place the player in the role of an explorer who has arrived on an aquatic alien planet. Since both have huge watery worlds with incredible depths, the games require a lot of space and processing power. The updates aim to address this, with Below Zero 2.0 up for release first which will improve optimization and reduce the number of crashes. It will also come with a player customization option in order to tweak factors like resource availability and creature aggressiveness. This will be followed by Subnautica 2.0 which will also have improved performance and a texture switch to TextMeshPro for better visuals, assets, and UI to make it more like Below Zero.
Both Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero are going through coding changes to fix bugs and improve gameplay. It's not confirmed when the changes will be finalized, but the devs affirm that they are doing this to improve player experience.
