Subnautica 2 has already sold over a million copies one hour into its Early Access launch, developer Unknown Worlds says.
Key leadership from the company had been booted from Subnautica 2 development until recently, when the winds changed in the ongoing legal drama with parent company Krafton, and now the game appears fully recovered and sporting a revenge body. Over on Twitter, the official Subnautica account shares, "Over 1 million Subnauts have already dived into Subnautica 2" with a little mind blown emoji that sums up how wild a milestone that is already. The team adds, "We can't thank you enough for your support!"
Over 1 million Subnauts have already dived into Subnautica 2 🤯 We can't thank you enough for your support! pic.twitter.com/3a0OKXChvpMay 14, 2026
Unknown Worlds co-founder and Subnautica director Charlie Cleveland was suddenly ejected from the company in 2025 along with CEO Ted Gill and co-founder Max McGuire. At the time, Cleveland expressed "shock" at the dismissal while Krafton countered that Cleveland was speeding toward an Early Access release to receive a promised $250 million payout.
The current fate of that cash is still unknown, as Krafton recently told GamesRadar+, "the former executives' claim for damages or an earnout related to Subnautica 2, with further litigation [is] still pending" after a judge ordered the publisher to reinstate fired CEO Gill in March.
Anyway, Unknown Worlds has certainly made a couple of dollars in selling its astounding 1 million copies, likely made possible by huge pre-order numbers. Ahead of its launch, Subnautica 2 topped Steam's best-sellers chart, and landed on 5 million Steam wishlists.
No matter its origin, the sales indicate a huge change in fortune for Unknown Worlds. Not long ago, we wondered if we'd ever even get our hands on Subnautica 2 at all – now it's out for anyone to grab on Steam, the Epic Games Store, or Xbox.
And people are clamoring for the underwater sequel, in which you work alone or with friends in co-op to survive in a persnickety alien ocean. Not only did the game instantly debut to massive numbers on Steam – it's sitting at 463,021 concurrent players, according to SteamDB at the time of writing – but also, an hour after launch, it's probably even more popular than we know.
The Steam numbers were already impressive, and 1 million copies sold is also extremely impressive. But when you take into account that Subnautica 2 is also included in Xbox Game Pass, it becomes even wilder, since there's bound to be a number of people who are playing Subnautica 2 through their subscriptions. It's possible that Unknown Worlds has effectively moved well over 1 million copies, easy.
Now that Subnautica 2 is out, Valve's own Deadlock tops Steam's most wishlisted chart.
