Update []: More and more it feels like Sony’s old approach to Front Access is biting it in the gut. The runaway success of Subnautica 2 is proof of that.
To be fair, this game is available on Game Pass therefore it is possible Microsoft has a legacy console exclusivity deal with the title. (Odd, at the time it was promoting Halo for PS5, but we’re going down.)
Unknown Worlds hasn’t said anything about when Subnautica 2 will come to PS5, but a Discord comment from a dev (shared on Reddit) revealed that “PlayStation does not have an Early Access program yet. [so there’s] there is no news on Subnautica 2 [for the PS5].”
The problem is Sony it does allow choose Early Access games on their console, but there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to it. Palworld, for example, is a high-profile example.
It seems to us that PlayStation is only allowing early access games on PS store when they become famous enough.
However, Subnautica 2 recently reached a peak of almost 500k simultaneous downloads on Steam, and has been one of the most wanted platform games for years.
At the end of the day, we’re just glad that Unknown Worlds was able to release this game at all, because of all the legal drama mentioned in the original article below.
But there’s a feeling that Sony’s approach to bundling Early Access games costs some of these runaway hits upon release, which is a policy we think the manufacturer should review.
Original story: Subnautica 2’s road to release may be more interesting than the game itself.
Unless you’ve been living underwater, you’ll know that former publisher Krafton and creator of Unknown Worlds have been caught bitter conflict, leading to the firing of the dev CEO and much more.
In the end, the jury sided with the San Francisco studio, and there it is zero talk about the Korean giant anywhere in this new car. In fact, ousted CEO Ted Gill is quoted in a press release, he may now be back at work.
Madness!
“We are excited that players will experience Subnautica 2 for themselves, starting on May 14,” he said. “Our team can’t wait to hear your feedback as the game evolves throughout Early Access.”
As mentioned above, the game will be launched in Early Access in just two weeks, where it will be one of the biggest titles in the world.
Subnautica 2 has been sitting pretty as a game listed on Steam for quite some time now, and while that doesn’t always translate into sales… Well, in this instance we’re honestly not going to put out huge numbers.
The catch in all of this, of course, is that Sony is crazy about Early Access games. There are examples of it bending its own rules to liberate it, but it usually prefers finished products to PS store.
All of that means Subnautica 2 will be out on PC and Xbox Series X|S on May 14th, but you’ll have to hold tight for the PS5 release.
The good news is that we expect this game to come to Sony’s console eventually, and it will be a full, finished version when it does. We might have to do another run of the original and the Below Zero spin-off while we wait.