The first time I came across a Reaper Leviathan in Subnautica is a moment in my gaming life that I’ll hold onto forever. One moment I was alone amidst endless ocean, a trespassing sack of meat and flippers wondering where the hell I was. Then, a deep, forbidding thrum. I whirl about, checking my surroundings for predators. Nothing in sight. Eventually my gaze settles on a calm patch of dark blue sea – and from the centre of my screen, out of the blackness, a gigantic and horrifyingly silent monstrosity hurtles towards me.

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In the apparently endless battle-rap between developers and key reseller marketplace G2A, the shop has lobbed a lyrical bomb back at Unknown Worlds. As we reported yesterday, Subnautica and Natural Selection 2 developer Charlie Cleveland alleged: We paid $30,000 to deal with credit card chargebacks because of G2A.

G2A s fascinating response: Selling keys on a marketplace which was yet to come into existence seems unreasonable at best.

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Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds has asked grey market key reseller G2A to pay them $300,000 in restitution. The developer claims the amount represents the $30,000 it had to spend to cover chargebacks from fraudulent credit card purchases of Natural Selection 2. G2A had previously promised to pay 10x the amount of any costs lost via fraudulent purchases on their site, as long as there s proof such a thing occurred.

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The first big update for Subnautica: Below Zero is out now. Unknown Worlds have added new areas, new sea-life, and a big modular submarine truck to build in their early access survival adventure. The Seatruck update introduces your un-glamorous flagship vessel of this new game, an upgradable hauler that starts out with just a front cab, but you can add extra holds with new functions. There’s two new biomes inhabited by new creatures, such as the massive, toothsome Squidshark. It may not be creatively named, but it can still kill you. See it and more in motion below.

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Subnautica is one of the great early access success stories. Not just because of its financial achievements – still dwarfed by some of the bigger names – but because of how it used the process to build and refine an exquisitely good game. Co-created with its players, but confident enough to maintain its creative direction, the result is one of the best games of the last few years. So perhaps it’s not ultimately that surprising that Unknown Worlds would repeat the practice for their follow-up, Subnautica: Below Zero.

Once again we’re under the sea, albeit in frostier conditions, with the first few hours and earliest biomes of a whole new adventure.

The following inevitably contains mild spoilers for the original Subnautica>

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Those who have plumbed the depths of Subnautica‘s oceans will have some chilly new waters to explore very soon. Standalone expansion Subnautica: Below Zero launches on Steam, Discord and the Epic Store on January 30th, albeit in early access. There’s frosty new biomes to survive, strange new alien flora and fauna to eat (or be eaten by) and more to do on the surface. There’s even going to be alien penguins (called Pengwings – yes, really), which would be adorable if a quarter of their body wasn’t an enormous, vertical spike-lined clam shell.

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There’s a dire force abroad in the open world of Subnautica, an irresistible entity hell-bent on warping or destroying everything that world contains, and just for once, it isn’t the fucking player.

(Beware: moderate plot spoilers follow.)

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Underwater survival game Subnautica has a feature I neglected to mention in my review time capsules! These titanium pods are player-made containers. They can hold a message, a screenshot and a few small items. At a certain point in the game you get to make one of these capsules. It s then put through a voting process, vetted by the developers and – if it’s good enough – finally plopped into the ocean for other divers to find. Some of these gifts have been useful, others sentimental. One is even an easter egg from the game s technical artist. Here’s the best ones we found when we went trawling (through Reddit). (more…)

Subnautica is remarkable for a great many reasons, and one of them is a particular creature discovered at about 300m deep, stomping their way in long processions across a well worn path of the seabed. The Sea Treaders. These titanic crustaceans(?) are a herd of complete joy. (more…)

I’ve long been absorbed by the pleasure of games as safe places. Those oases that allow you to be entirely distracted from the outside, encased in a fantastic world that let you find calm. As someone who lives with the incessant turmoil that is generalised anxiety disorder, such games can offer extraordinary respite. And none has ever done this more for me than Subnautica. (more…)