Subnautica 2 guide aside, the big early-access addition here is co-op. Subnautica 2 launched into early access on May 14, 2026, and it lets up to four players head into the same underwater world together.
The hosting side is fairly flexible. You can start a brand-new multiplayer run in Survival or Creative mode, or convert an existing single-player save into a co-op session. When the host loads that save, the base, gear, quest progress, and personal progress, including DNA upgrades, all stay in place.
Joining is handled very differently. A player who enters someone else’s world comes in with a fresh character, so their inventory and progress do not carry over the way they would in a game like Valheim. That makes the host’s save feel more like a shared world than a full character import system.
There are a few useful freedoms built in, though they come with some risk. Guests can use the host’s resources and even edit the base, and there does not seem to be a permission layer to lock that down. If a teammate goes down, there is no revive option either, since the fallen player is sent back to the lifepod instead of being brought back by someone else.
One of the nicer touches is world sharing. A single-player save or a multiplayer save can be uploaded to the cloud and turned into a copy that friends can use with a key. If you want to take a multiplayer world back into solo play later, you have to convert it to single-player first, then upload it from there.
It is a straightforward system with a few rough edges, but it gives Subnautica 2 a co-op setup the original never had. Share your thoughts in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram.
Subnautica 2
Developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment
