Just When You Thought It Was Safe: Subnautica: Below Zero Early Access Starts January 30

TheGamer

By Sam Watanuki

Published Jan 28, 2019

Unknown Worlds Entertainment is ready to dive into the frozen depths of Subnautica: Below Zero.

via Twitter

If you are looking to warm up from the cold winter months, it’s best to look elsewhere as the team at Unknown Worlds Entertainment is ready to dive into the frozen depths of Subnautica: Below Zero.

On Wednesday, January 30th, Subnautica: Below Zero will enter Early Access on the Steam, Epic, and Discord Stores for $19.99 USD, and the team behind the game want you to be a part of the release.

In celebration of its Early Access release, the team will be streaming the premier of the Subnautica: Below Zero Early Access trailer live on Twitch and YouTube in an hour-long event on January 30th, 6PM UTC.

Before you get too excited, the developers of the game want to ensure all players are fully aware that Subnautica: Below Zero is literally in the Early Access stage, and not a completed game.

“Below Zero is not finished,” a post on the Unknown Worlds website states. “It is full of bugs. It lacks polish, runs poorly, and is missing features. We are offering Early Access not because we want your money, but because we want your feedback. We make better games when we make them with you.”

To their credit, player feedback was vital to the success of the original Subnautica while it spent time in Early Access, which would explain why the game has maintained a “Very Positive” user rating on Steam, while averaging an 83 Metacritc score and an 8.1 user score across the platforms of PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Though some players may choose to skip Early Access to avoid spoilers, the player feedback that the Below Zero development team receives will ultimately only make the final product better.

The team wants to bring Subnautica: Below Zero to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as soon as possible as well, but does not have a date for either platform. Early Access is a possibility through Xbox One’s program, but the team is not sure whether or not that will actually happen. PlayStation does not have an early Access program.

The hope is to release the 1.0 version of the game simultaneously on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mac, and Windows PC, but they cannot yet fully commit to that goal.