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Proteus
May 23, 2026 at 02:29 PM
Added the Eido-Thea System, the tidal lock to the gas giant, and surface gravity (~1.05 g); added 5 wikilinks
Proteus is the ocean moon on which Subnautica 2 takes place. It is an uncharted, water-covered moon in a binary star system, orbiting a gas giant. Proteus is the setting of the game, not its intended destination: the colony ship CICADA was bound for the desert world Zezura when its AI, the Noetic Advisor, diverted course toward Proteus instead. The ship broke apart entering the moon's atmosphere, scattering survivors across its ocean.
Proteus is an ocean moon: a body whose surface is dominated by deep water, with a layered ocean that descends through a series of regions. It sits in a binary star system and orbits a gas giant. The gas giant is known to the Axum as Apiary. The name Proteus is established in the game itself; some marketing copy leaves the world unnamed, but the in-game material treats it as Proteus.
The system Proteus sits in is the Eido-Thea System, a binary pair of red-dwarf stars. The moon orbits a ringed gas giant, the body the Axum call Apiary, and is tidally locked to it, so the gas giant sits permanently in the same part of the sky and dominates the skybox. Proteus is a relatively large moon: its surface gravity is roughly five percent higher than Earth's, about 1.05 g.
The moon is the home of the Axum civilization, whose structures, observatories, and inscriptions are found beneath the waves. It is also where the Blight, a spreading corruption, is taking hold of parts of the ecosystem.
Proteus is not a world humans can live on indefinitely. Two hazards make it lethal over the long term:
A high-xenon atmosphere that acts as a sedative on humans.
Water that carries heavy metals, building up in the body over time.
In the game's fiction, this is why colonists undergo a process called reprinting roughly every three months, restoring their bodies against the moon's slow toll. Reprinting is lore only in the current Early Access build: it explains how survivors persist on Proteus, but it has no associated gameplay mechanic at present. The player's own ability to survive the deep instead comes from the adaptations system rather than from reprinting.
Proteus is divided into a set of named regions, documented in full on the Biomes page. The current Early Access build ships with the regions below.
Region | Approx. Depth | Role |
|---|---|---|
0 to 266 m | Starting region around the Lifepod. | |
0 to 250 m | Open transitional region; home of the Collector Leviathan. | |
to roughly 827 m | Second region about 1,000 m east; tied to the Axum and the chapter ending. | |
to roughly 3,100 m | Out-of-bounds boundary trench patrolled by leviathans; no resources. | |
Unconfirmed | Announced future region, out of bounds in the current build; intended home of the World Tree. |
Several names that circulated before launch are not confirmed present in the current Early Access build, including Kelp Forest, Jelly Plateaus, Overgrown Ruins, VepZone, and Start Zone. The Biomes page tracks the full reconciliation.
Proteus has no in-game map. The player navigates using a compass and beacons they place themselves to mark points of interest. Learning the moon's layout by sight and memory, and tagging important spots with beacons, is part of how the player builds a mental picture of the world.
Proteus carries the remains of the Axum civilization, including an observatory in the Karakorum region. The Blight is spreading across parts of the moon, appearing as Blighted areas and as growths that infect local flora. Beyond the player's Pioneers, the moon is also home to earlier survivors, including the rebel faction Jubilee, fixated on the World Tree that is said to lie in the future Xanadu region.
