The next Subnautica game is coming in 2025

(Image credit: Subnautica)

I don't know about you, but my favorite way to see new games announced is in PowerPoint documents with titles like "3Q 2023 Earnings Results - Investor Relations." It's just so magical. I get little tingles all over.

That's how we learned that "The Next Subnautica" is planned for a launch in 2025: not with an exciting teaser trailer at The Game Awards but from a Krafton financial report released this month, as spotted by the keen eyes over at Rock Paper Shotgun.

Not much razzle-dazzle, but we'll take this good news however it comes. We first learned developer Unknown Worlds was working on another Subnautica game last year when it posted a job listing for senior narrative designer. It sounds like that new hire worked out if the game is on track for a 2025 release. Hooray!

But what is this new Subnautica game, exactly? Unknown Worlds called it "the next game in the Subnautica universe," which is a little different than calling it "Subnautica 3." (A sequel, Subnautica Below Zero, came out in 2021.) The Krafton report simply calls it "The Next Subnautica" and lists it as "Adventure/Survival" in a bullet point, but does that mean it's another straight-up sequel?

We don't have any solid info yet. I'd expect it to not stray far from the underwater survival formula of the first two games, but you never know: every time a Steamworld game comes out it's basically in a different genre, so it's possible the next Subnautica might not stick to the blueprints that made the original the best survival game of 2018. Hopefully we'll learn more about the next Subnautica game soon, and maybe next time it won't be in an earnings report.

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.