Subnautica is seeing a major surge in players, reaching the highest player count the game has had in eight years. While the sequel to Subnautica recently entered early access, it seems that a lot of players are now choosing to check out the game that started it all.
Subnautica got its own start in early access back in 2014, but has seen releases as recent as this year, with the upgraded Nintendo Switch 2 version of Subnautica releasing in February 2026. Players are tasked with keeping their character alive while exploring the ocean of an alien world, which they’ve become stranded on. It seems that a number of players have decided to revisit or check out the first game in light of the release of its popular sequel.
Subnautica 2 Buyer’s Guide for Early Access
Subnautica 2 launches in early access on May 14 with co-op multiplayer, Game Pass support, leviathans, vehicles, and years of planned updates.
Subnautica Sees Player Count Surge Eight Years After Launch
While the release of Subnautica 2 saw massive player counts and achieved a million sales by its release date, the original Subnautica isn’t doing too badly for itself, either. Interest in the original game has been slowly trending upwards over the course of May, likely due to curiosity and nostalgia drummed up by the sequel’s release. As of May 19, Subnautica has experienced a major boost in player count on Steam, with an impressive maximum concurrent player count of over 48,000. The greatest peak landed on May 17, but the game has been holding on to interest, trending at around 35,000-40,000 concurrent players in the following days.
Subnautica 2 has had hundreds of thousands of players check out the game concurrently on Steam, but as far as the original game goes, this is a major spike in player count. When Subnautica originally released on Steam, it experienced a maximum concurrent player count of 51,000, and has never come close to that peak since. Barring a few smaller spikes, the game has largely seen concurrent player counts of 10,000 or less in the years since up until this point. With just 3,000 players separating the peaks of 2018 and 2026, it seems like Subnautica has a chance of beating its best numbers if this continues.
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It’s not uncommon for earlier games in a series to see a bump in player count when sequels release, but certainly rarer for a game to perform practically as well as it did at release nearly a decade later. It’s likely that Subnautica 2‘s early access state is leading some players to check out the first game, which is fully complete, giving players a more polished experience and more to do. Subnautica 2 currently has a limit on how far players can progress, so some players who have been left wanting more are likely looking to the original game to scratch the itch. Some of the players in the spike are undoubtedly new to the franchise, while others may be revisiting the classic that drew them to the sequel.
While many feel that the original Subnautica holds up well, there are some pros and cons to going back to the original. For example, the original Subnautica doesn’t have multiplayer without the use of mods, while the sequel has co-op natively. On the other hand, players’ frustrations with immortal fish in Subnautica 2 can be avoided in the original, as players can target and kill creatures as big as leviathans with enough practice and persistence. While it’s likely that Subnautica 2 will ultimately be a far more exciting experience once the game is complete, for now, both titles have a lot to offer fans looking for more undersea adventures.
- Released
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January 23, 2018
- ESRB
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E10+ for Everyone 10+: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language
- Publisher(s)
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Gearbox Publishing
