"The Next Subnautica" aims to deliver underwater survival spooks in early 2025

“The Next Subnautica” is targeting a release date in the first half of 2025, according to the latest financial report from PUBG publisher Krafton. Unknown Worlds are back in the development seat for their third underwater survival dip, following the terrifying breakout first game in 2018 and its icier sequel Subnautica: Below Zero in 2021.

Unknown Worlds had previously teased a new Subnautica game in job listings, but this seems like the most concrete reference to the threequel so far. That can only be good news, since the original Subnautica is both one of the best open world games and arguably the very best survival game out there, so any follow-ups have big flippers to fill.

Details on the new game are near non-existent, though the job listings were looking for someone to define “the history and lore of a new science fiction world and its alien inhabitants.” So we can guess that it will probably move to another oceanic planet, or just a difference era/part of the same planet, just as Below Zero did.

Nothing can quite replicate Subnautica’s brand of horror, which usually entails frantically looking over your shoulder whenever distant, deep-bellied groans bubble through the water. You’ll sometimes be greeted by a colossal leviathan ready to swallow you whole or a creepy alien that stares up at you with advance sentience in its eyes. I’m not sure which is scarier in the depths of the ocean, but I’m just happy to be getting more craft-to-survive games in this universe.

Other “major pipeline titles” listed in Krafton’s financial report include the PUBG studio’s upcoming PvEvP extraction shooter Project Black Budget, which is apparently aiming to come out in the second half of 2024. Then there’s the even more mysterious Project Gold Rush, an “action-adventure sandbox” also targeting 2025.