Updates and Patch Notes

Subnautica 2 launched into Early Access on May 14, 2026 and receives ongoing updates while development continues. This page tracks the public version history: the Early Access launch build, the day-one hotfix, and each numbered hotfix released since, with confirmed changes only. For the forward-looking plan of what is coming next, see the Early Access and Development Roadmap.

Updates ship as separate news posts and roll out to all platforms over time. Because the game launched on PC ahead of consoles, each patch reaches PC first and arrives on Xbox Series X|S once it clears certification. Further hotfixes are ongoing, and this page is updated as new ones are confirmed.

Update History at a Glance

The table below summarizes every confirmed release in launch order. Detailed change lists follow in the sections beneath it.

Early Access Launch (May 14, 2026)

The Early Access launch build opened with the opening story chapter, a focused set of biomes on Proteus, the launch creature roster, and the core crafting, Base Building, and Survival Mechanics loop. It supports single-player and up-to-four-player cooperative play with full crossplay from the start. The build shipped on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store) and Xbox Series X|S at $29.99, with day-one Game Pass coverage. A single purchase covers all updates through the 1.0 release and beyond. See Platforms and System Requirements for the full platform and hardware breakdown, and Early Access Launch Events for the launch milestones.

Day-One Hotfix (May 15, 2026)

The first post-launch patch arrived the day after release and targeted a cooperative base-editing problem.

• Addressed a Multiplayer and Co-Op bug where non-host players could not demolish walls in a shared base. The hotfix sharply reduced the failure rate, with a complete fix planned for a later patch.

Hotfix 1 (May 19, 2026)

Hotfix 1 focused on launch-week stability and on how the game handled analytics and telemetry.

• Updated the crash-on-startup error message for AMD graphics cards on DirectX 12 to provide more guidance and support.

• Fixed an infrequent crash tied to the Ping feature.

• Enabled analytics only after the player accepts the Terms of Service.

• Reduced the amount of data sent to backend services.

The notes also signaled that a further Terms of Service adjustment and an analytics FAQ would follow, and that the Xbox build was awaiting certification at the time of publication.

Community Letter (May 20, 2026)

Six days after launch, the development team published an open letter rather than a patch. It acknowledged that creature balance needed work and that the studio respects the player request for direct ways to deal with hostile creatures while keeping the no-weapons design. The letter committed to a series of upcoming patches that would adjust creature aggression timing, aggro range, flare effectiveness, Survival Multitool effectiveness, and how creatures interact with vehicles and bases. It is included here for context because the balance work it describes began landing in the hotfixes that followed.

Hotfix 2 (May 22, 2026)

Hotfix 2 was the largest post-launch update of the launch month. It expanded resource availability at both ends of progression, tuned a creature behavior that had been frustrating vehicle users, fixed several crashes and exploits, improved performance on the highest visual preset, and revised the legal and privacy documents.

Resources

• Added more Silver resource areas in the early-game region, easing an early-game bottleneck on a common electronics material.

• Added more Troilite resource areas in the late-game region. Troilite is a scarce, non-respawning late-game material, so the additional areas give players more room before it has to be farmed.

Creature Behavior

• Adjusted Hammerhead behavior so the creatures are no longer as attracted to Tadpole lights. Before the change, Hammerheads were strongly drawn to the submersible’s lights and would harass parked or piloted Tadpoles.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that could teleport players back to base while they were exploring in a Tadpole.

• Fixed an infinite-oxygen bug that occurred after dying of hunger or thirst while piloting a Tadpole.

• Resolved a crash caused by losing a Multiplayer and Co-Op connection.

• Fixed a random crash in the late-game region.

Performance and Settings

• Improved performance when using the Epic visual settings preset.

• Added an in-game callout letting players know that telemetry can be turned off at any time from settings. The callout shipped in English first, with translations planned for a later patch.

Terms and Privacy

• Revised the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy across multiple sections. Players are prompted to re-accept the Terms of Service on their next launch.

Hotfix 3 (June 1, 2026)

Hotfix 3 delivered the first batch of the creature-balance work promised in the May 20 community letter, alongside graphics-driver fixes and a base-building cost reduction. As with earlier patches, it reaches PC first and arrives on Xbox Series X|S after certification.

Graphics and Technical

• Upgraded DLSS to version 4.5.

• Fixed issues that could cause DLSS to crash the game.

• Fixed issues that could cause DLSS settings not to be saved correctly.

• Fixed Frame Generation not being available in certain versions of the game.

Base Building

• Reduced Base Building Interior Wall costs to one quarter of their previous price, making interior partitions much cheaper to place.

Creature Behavior

• Hammerheads no longer attack unpiloted Tadpoles, though they can still take an interest in them. The fix that left Hammerheads occasionally not drawn to Flares was also corrected.

• Increased the overall damage of Marrowbreaches and spaced their attacks out so they strike less frequently.

• Reduced Nibbler perception range so players are less visible to them, lengthened how long Nibblers circle before attacking, reduced their movement speed, increased their sensitivity to the Survival Multitool, and increased their overall damage.

Gameplay and Multiplayer

• Fixed a rare crash when starting games.

• Fixed Multiplayer and Co-Op clients (not the host) reverting to their previous position when rejoining a session.

• Fixed the Strike Armor modification stacking additively, which could reach a potentially game-breaking state.

• Fixed goggles remaining visible in first-person view when exiting the Tadpole Haul Chassis as a passenger.

• Localized the text callout on the Terms of Service acceptance screen, and added more context to crash reports for hard-to-reproduce issues.

Early Access 1.1 - Adaptive Measures (July 8, 2026)

Adaptive Measures is the first major post-launch update, released on July 8, 2026, roughly eight weeks into Early Access. It pairs a large batch of quality-of-life work with targeted system changes, and many entries were flagged as coming directly from community feedback. Like earlier patches, it reaches PC first and arrives on Xbox Series X|S after certification. The studio change list runs to roughly ninety bug fixes; the summary below groups the headline changes.

Gameplay and BioMods

• Smoothed early-game BioMod progression and added two more Bio Labs, one in the Coral Gardens and one in the Axum ruins.

• Raised the number of BioMods unlockable from Bio Labs across the world from four to six, and added unlock badges in the Bio Lab.

• Passive BioMod slots now open up by scanning creatures with the Bioscanner, and the interface shows how many scans each slot needs alongside the player's total scan count. Creative mode unlocks every BioMod by default.

• Added the ability to sprint on land, either on the surface or inside a base, with a remappable sprint control and a reduced default walk speed.

• Improved wreck exploration with more traversal and oxygen puzzles and clearer door and button signposting.

Creatures and Resources

• Most creatures now flee after being struck by the Survival Multitool, and the Sonic Resonator leaves them briefly dizzy; in both cases the creature holds off retaliating for a short window afterward except in self-defense.

• Reworked the Bloom Parasite as the primary Bloom encounter creature and rebalanced Bloom encounters in the Coral Gardens and ruins.

• Revised the creature naming and discovery system to line up with the previous game, and added missing scan icons for the Periscopic Clowncrab and the Necrolei.

• Added more Silver in the Coral Gardens with a hint line near Silver deposits, and corrected resonatable and breakable data on several resources.

Base Building, UI, and Narrative

• Added a storage buildable that holds items without feeding nearby crafting systems, so cached materials can be kept out of recipe auto-completion, and made the World Tree Relic decoration buildable.

• Reworked Vehicle Dock and Fabricator placement, shrinking the dock platform and rails to fit smaller rooms, and increased the maximum deconstruct size of a base.

• Added a field-of-view slider, community and support buttons on the main menu, and reorganized databank entries.

• Audiologs no longer play automatically; unlocked logs now notify the player and are added to the PDA for replay at any time, which mainly helps multiplayer sessions.

• Noted on Xbox that a Game Pass subscription of any tier is required for multiplayer, and revised the privacy policy to cover voice data for the proximity chat feature planned for the next update, EA 1.2.

Hotfix 4 (July 14, 2026)

Hotfix 4 arrived six days after Adaptive Measures and is a short corrective patch rather than a content release. It clears a progression blocker introduced around the update, removes a physics problem that had been affecting player bases, and fixes an interface option that was missing on console.

• Fixed Angel Combs that would not open for some players, which had been blocking story progression.

• Fixed water currents appearing inside player bases, which had been disrupting movement, trapping players, and preventing building or expansion.

• Fixed the field-of-view slider not appearing on Xbox, where the option added in Adaptive Measures was missing from the settings menu.

• Fixed two low-volume crashes: one on Xbox when joining a session invite, and one tied to creature spawning.

The notes repeat the standing advice to disable or uninstall community mods before launching after a patch, because mods are not updated for the new build and can crash the game on start. As with earlier patches, the fix reaches PC first and arrives on Xbox Series X|S once it clears certification.

Ongoing Updates

Unknown Worlds continues to ship hotfixes and larger updates throughout Early Access. New releases are added to this page as their changes are confirmed. For the planned feature work that has not yet shipped, including the quality-of-life and cooperative updates and the larger biome and creature expansion, refer to the Early Access and Development Roadmap. Roadmap items are subject to change and are not reflected here until they are actually released. In the first post-launch developer video log on June 4, 2026, the studio said it would wind down the rapid hotfix cadence of launch month and focus on the first major post-launch update, EA 1.1. That update shipped as Adaptive Measures on July 8, 2026, followed by Hotfix 4 on July 14, and both are detailed above; later work continues on the Early Access and Development Roadmap until it ships, with the next update, EA 1.2, focused on cooperative features including proximity voice chat.