Unknown World’s underwater exploration sequel, Subnautica 2, has seen an impressive surge of divers since its launch in Early Access, with the game already selling over one million copies within its first hour, and garnering almost half a million concurrent players on Steam.
Over 1 million Subnauts have already dived into Subnautica 2 🤯
— Subnautica (@Subnautica) May 14, 2026
We can't thank you enough for your support! pic.twitter.com/3a0OKXChvp
One hour after launch, its developers took to the game’s official social media pages to deliver the good news and thank players for their support. Additionally, Subnautica 2 also saw an influx of players upon release, and at the time of writing, it has seen an all-time peak of 467,582 players on Steam, a record the game achieved within its first hour of launch. This means that there are still a lot more players who bought the game and have yet to play it, so these numbers might very well increase over the coming weekend.
Building off the success of the 2014 original, Subnautica 2 was making waves even before its launch, becoming Steam’s most-wishlisted game prior. The game also made headlines due to the drama between developer Unknown Worlds and parent company Krafton, with the latter firing a number of key personnel from the former, including CEO Ted Gill, in July 2025, alongside delaying the game.
This kicked off a heated legal battle surrounding the claims that Krafton ordered the layoffs to avoid paying a US$250 million bonus if the game achieved certain sales targets. While Krafton initially claimed that the firings were made because the personnel involved were planning to release the game before it was ready, subsequent findings, including a messy drama surrounding Krafton CEO Changhan Kim’s alleged use of ChatGPT for advice to get out of the US$250 million payout, led to the lawsuit eventually ruling in Unknown World’s favour, with Gill reinstated as CEO and the eligibility deadline for that US$250 million bonus being extended.
Despite its bumpy journey to release, it’s pretty clear that Unknown World’s efforts have paid off, and with Subnautica 2 already doing so well within its first few hours, it looks like the team might be getting their bonuses after all, which is all around good news for almost everybody.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
