Deep Sea Trek 2 Arrives with 4-Player Co-op, Following 18.5 Million Sales of Original

Subnautica 2 Announced with 4-Player Co-op as Series Hits 18.5 Million Sales

Subnautica 2: Uncharted Waters is official. The franchise has moved 18.5 million copies globally, and the new entry introduces co-op for up to four players—a first for the series. Since September 2025, the game has held the top spot on Steam's wishlist chart for nine consecutive months.

The original Subnautica sold over 9.6 million units on Steam alone. Add Subnautica: Below Zero, which launched in May 2021, and you get those 18.5 million total sales. In the survival-crafting space, few games reach that scale without heavy discounting. This series earned it through word-of-mouth and consistent quality.

The co-op implementation changes the core loop. You can still go solo if you want the classic tension, but now you can bring three friends into the depths. One pilot, one navigator, two on resource duty—that's the natural division of labor when you're running a submarine operation on an alien ocean floor. Encountering leviathan-class fauna becomes a group problem instead of a panic-inducing solo event.

Both previous titles are coming to Switch 2 in February 2026. The port runs at 1440p docked, 1080p handheld, locked at 60fps. That's solid optimization work for hardware that's finally capable of handling this level of visual fidelity without compromise.

If you haven't touched the series, start with the original. It goes on sale frequently for $20-30 on Steam. Play through that, then decide whether Below Zero and the upcoming sequel are worth your time. If you're specifically interested in the multiplayer angle, wait for Subnautica 2—it's the first time Unknown Worlds has built co-op into the design from the ground up, and that should fundamentally alter how the game plays.