Subnautica 2 promises to add 'one of the most requested' features, but sorry, it's not a knife you can stab fish with

Subnautica 2 - Surprised character looking out of his vessel at an enemy sea creature — (Image credit: Unknown Worlds Entertainment)

Subnautica 2 launched last month with both huge player numbers and widespread acclaim, but this is just the start of its early access journey. With a couple years of development still to come, design lead Anthony Gallegos outlined what players can expect to see coming to the undersea survival game in the weeks and months ahead.

There's good news for fans of the original: a beloved feature is going to resurface soon in Subnautica 2, but there's also a bit of bad news for the crowd who have been clamoring for a way to kill aggressive sea creatures.

"Our next region, the home of the Collector Leviathan, will add a new chassis that brings back one of the most requested player experiences. So, get ready to get stompy," Gallegos said.

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That can only mean one thing: the prawn suit from the original Subnautica is coming to the sequel. The undersea mech suit, designed for extreme pressure environments, let players walk along the seafloor on mechanical legs, and attachments like a drill arm and grabber claw allow for mining and sample collection. It even had a grapple hook so you could swing around like Spider-Man—though those particular features haven't been confirmed for Subnautica 2 yet.

Also planned for the near future are updates to improve the multiplayer experience, especially when it comes to proximity chat. "No more two seconds worth of lag before you hear what someone says. We've heard the outcry for months and we're working hard to get that in as soon as possible," Gallegos said. Emotes are also planned for a future update.

But as far as the survival knife so many players have asked for so they can kill hostile sea creatures like hammerheads and nibblers? Still not coming, I'm afraid. On the plus side, the aggression of creatures has been tweaked and balanced in recent hotfixes that modify "predator attack frequency, damage, and avoidance when a player deters them."

You can watch the full Subnautica 2 dev vlog on YouTube. And hey, if you really want to kill fish, there are always Subnautica 2 mods for that.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.