The highly anticipated early access launch of Subnautica 2 is prompting other indie game developers to adjust their release dates. They’re trying to avoid launching their games at the same time and getting overshadowed. Players have been eagerly awaiting Subnautica 2 since the first game came out on PCs in early 2018, and now other development teams are rushing to reschedule so their games don’t get lost in the excitement.
In late April, Unknown Worlds officially announced that Subnautica 2 will enter early access on May 14th, confirming what many gamers had been expecting for weeks. Given how much players loved the first Subnautica – it has a 96% positive rating from over 177,000 reviews on Steam – the sequel is poised to be a major hit.
Subnautica 2’s Early Access Release is Like Hollow Knight: Silksong All Over Again
The upcoming release of Subnautica 2 is generating a lot of excitement, but it’s also causing some disruption for smaller game developers. Several have already decided to postpone their own game launches to avoid competing with its popularity. For example, Square Glade Games’ Outbound and indieGiant’s Farm To Table have shifted their release plans. This situation is reminiscent of what happened in September 2025 when Team Cherry announced Hollow Knight: Silksong, the sequel to a hugely successful game. Several games were delayed then as well, including Megabonk, CloverPit, and Baby Steps, some of which later found success on their own.
Interestingly, some studios are now moving up their release dates instead of delaying them. The first example is the cozy exploration game Outbound, where players transform a camper into a mobile home. Originally planned for May 14th, the developers decided to release it on May 11th, explaining they didn’t want to compete with another highly anticipated game launching on the same day.
The farming and restaurant simulator Farm to Table will now launch into early access on May 9th – a change made to avoid coinciding with the release of Subnautica 2. Interestingly, Farm to Table was originally planned for May 11th, the same date another game, Outbound, shifted to in an effort to also avoid clashing with Subnautica 2’s launch.
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Results
Okay, so things got pretty messy with Subnautica 2. It sounds like a lot of other games might be feeling the ripple effects, though not as much as if Silksong finally dropped. Basically, Krafton and the folks at Unknown Worlds had a huge legal battle. Apparently, Krafton tried to push out the leads, Max McGuire and Ted Gill, to avoid paying them a $250 million bonus they earned from the first Subnautica‘s success. Luckily, Ted Gill is back as CEO, and the court stepped in, telling Krafton to leave him and his vision for the game alone, even though Unknown Worlds still belongs to Krafton. It definitely feels like everyone’s expecting Subnautica 2 to be huge, which is probably why all this drama went down in the first place!
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2026-05-04 01:34