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The Axum are a sentient species native to the ocean moon that serves as the setting for Subnautica 2. As named in the game's PDA Data Bank entries, the Axum were the moon's dominant intelligent inhabitants long before the CICADA arrived. Their architecture remains visible across multiple biomes, but the species itself is not directly encountered in the Early Access launch build; the player learns about them through structures, inscriptions, and the Axum Vision Adaptation, which renders Axum glyphs legible.

Biology and Form

The Axum are described in the launch-build PDA entries as underwater-adapted, intelligent, and ancient. Direct depictions of an individual Axum are not present in the Early Access build. The species is known only through its constructed environment, its writing system, and the genetic and biochemical traces it left behind in the surrounding ecosystem. The launch-build text repeatedly refers to the Axum as builders rather than as a population, leaving the player to infer scale and demographic detail from the structures themselves.

Architecture

Axum-built sites are encountered throughout the moon's biomes. The largest concentration is in the alien-ruins biome (referred to as Alien Ruins in launch coverage and known internally on this wiki as the Overgrown Ruins) where intact and partially collapsed structures host the bulk of the species' surviving inscriptions. Outlying sites appear in Coral Gardens and adjacent regions; smaller Axum installations are scattered across the Sparse Plains and other mid-depth biomes.

A named Axum facility, the Karakorum Power Plant, appears in the launch build as a self-contained installation with its own routing puzzles and ambient hazards. The Karakorum site is referenced in launch-coverage walkthroughs and connects to other Axum-coded systems through power lines and conduit ports.

Axum Vision

The Axum Vision Adaptation is the gameplay key to the Axum lore arc. Acquired by interacting with the appropriate Angel Comb bulb (per launch-coverage walkthroughs, the pink bulb at a structure referred to in launch-coverage walkthroughs as the 'Sampling Pavilion' (a community-coined name pending in-build confirmation)), Axum Vision overlays an in-world translation layer on Axum glyphs. Without the adaptation, glyph panels are visible as decorative carving; with it, they become readable PDA entries that fill in the species' history, technology base, and the events that preceded the player's arrival.

Knowledge Tracks

The launch-build Axum entries fall into a small number of recurring tracks accessible from scanned Axum panels and recovered Axum artifacts.

Status In The Live Build

As of Early Access launch on 2026-05-14, the Axum are not directly encountered. There is no Axum creature spawn, no Axum NPC interaction, and no scripted Axum encounter inside the launch-build progression. The species exists in the world only through its architecture, inscriptions, and biochemical traces. The Early Access and Development Roadmap frames additional story content as a future deliverable, and direct depictions of the Axum may appear in a later update; nothing in the live build confirms this yet.

See Also

• The Angel Comb organism that grants the Axum Vision Adaptation.
• The Adaptations system, including Axum Vision.
• The Overgrown Ruins biome where most Axum structures are concentrated.
• The PDA Data Bank, which catalogues scanned Axum entries.