Amidst Continued Scrutiny Over Subnautica 2, Unknown Worlds has Just Updated the OG and Below Zero

It's always great to see a studio and its creators continuing to support their products. The Techland team has been supporting its Dying Light series from release, as has CD Projekt RED with its stable of games. And we're all the better for such ongoing support in a world where even the most critical of hits can simply be put out to pasture, never to be updated or given a go-around again, by the bigger companies. Which makes today's news kind of interesting. 

Amidst all the "they said, they said" hubbub and barb-addled snipes between former Unknown Worlds devs and the studio's new overseers, Krafton, and its higher-ups, alongside the very vocal community, for Subnautica 2, UW has been quietly updating the original Subnautica and its standalone follow-up (read: not a full sequel), Subnautica: Below Zero. 

The updates come as no surprise, really. A lot of games with sequels in the works will find themselves back in player circulation at a higher degree than usual and often elements going into said sequel can be retrofitted into the OG(s). Additionally, with this case, UW and Krafton just released the mobile version of Subnatica, meaning other elements from that venture have also helped guide the hand that caretakes the "How It Started" pillar(s). The "interesting" thing alluded to above, however? That's the "How It's Going" part, because the spat between the ex devs and the IP's still-employed lot isn't going away and continues to seemingly take away from the fact Subnautica 2 is stil very coming.

The solution internally then? A distraction, of course. The current 'world administration' does it week in, week out. (Truthfully, we think it's a combo of all of the above, but still...)

So, what then makes diving back into these gems so worthwhile after so long, with new updates? Well, you can read the full Subnautica breakdown here, and Below Zero's here. What stood out to us were these additions, though:

Fixed freezing... fixed freezing... fixed freezing.

The point here being that when Subnautica 2 drops Krafton has seemingly expressed a desire for a more stable game experience. And as publisher and bank roller, that's its right. The first two games have forever been plagued with bugs -- many of which are game-breaking -- and while the studio has always leveled its transparency in development against such things, as well as being Indie, it seems the IP and its reach is broad enough now to maybe change some expectations. So there might also be a more subtle reason for these updates which are, for sure, quality-of-life, but definitely quite some time on and oh-so-amazingly in time for the circus that is the current ex-dev and Krafton back and forth.

We love it, either way and will support Subnatica 2 provided its vision hasn't changed, but we're more acutely aware now of significant shifts in the day-to-day at Unknown Worlds.