Subnautica 2 makes a splash with 2 million copies sold in 12 hours, 18,000 positive Steam reviews, and 651,000 concurrent players across PC and Xbox

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Subnautica 2's Early Access is proving to be a Leviathan of the survival game genre, having sold over two million copies in half a day with impressive Steam reviews to back it all up.

Developer Unknown Worlds announced the game's stellar sales numbers earlier today, revealing it had sold two million copies in only 12 hours, up from the one million figure it had put up within an hour of descending into the ocean's depths.

Even now, Subnautica 2 is firmly holding on atop Steam's Top Sellers chart above Counter-Strike 2 and Forza Horizon 6's early Premium Edition launch. Subnautica 2's launch has made such a splash, in fact, that it's spread out to the other games in the series – the original Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero are at numbers five and six on the chart respectively.

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Steam data painted a similarly seismic picture, clueing us in to the game's monstrous concurrent player numbers. Unknown Worlds has now clarified that across all platforms – Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox – Subnautica 2's real concurrent player peak is at 651,000, nine times bigger than the first game's launch, and that's before the sequel's first weekend on the market.

Those hundreds of thousands of divers have good things to say about it, too. On Steam, Subnautica 2 has 18,620 positive user reviews against 1,526 red scores, giving it a 92% 'Very Positive' hit rate.

"Subnautica 2 is like Subnautica 1 but if Subnautica 1 was a cheese pizza and you finally added all the toppings," one such reviews reads. "Both are objectively good but Subnautica 2 also gave you double bacon and cheese for free."

Another says, "EA can be a mixed bag quality wise but I figured this one was worth a try, since the first game was pretty well refined and this really is just more of the same. Long story short, was not disappointed!"

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Negative reviews that do exist target the game's terms of service and EULA that sound downright restrictive. There's also the expected complaints lodged at many an Early Access game and its missing features, as well as Subnautica 2's lack of FOV sliders which are giving at least some players motion sickness (sea sickness?).

Now that Subnautica 2 is out, Valve's own Deadlock tops Steam's most wishlisted chart.

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Kaan SerinFreelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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