Subnautica 2 director says early access games should ship ugly features early
Anthony Gallegos says Unknown Worlds trust players to give them grace as they work on Subnautica 2, with early access still central to the studio.
Anthony Gallegos, creative director on Subnautica 2, said early access developers should ship features early even when they are ugly or unfinished, in comments made in a GamesIndustry.biz group chat.
Gallegos said Subnautica often launched features while they were "very ugly, incomplete, or prototype," and that Unknown Worlds trust their audience to give them grace while they figure things out.
He added that early access remains core to Unknown Worlds' DNA as the studio continues work on Subnautica 2, and noted the model can mean either long-term open development or a paid beta soft launch three months before a 1.0 release.
The discussion also drew in Denis Dyack, CEO of Apocalypse Studios, who cited Subnautica 2 as an example of large-budget early access developers setting expectations.
Early access since 2014
The original Subnautica launched in Steam early access in 2014, about a month after the program went live. According to SteamDB data cited by GamesIndustry.biz, 2,924 early access games have launched on Steam so far this year.
Quick answers
What did the Subnautica 2 creative director say about early access?
Anthony Gallegos said early access developers should ship features early, even when they are very ugly, incomplete or prototype, and that Unknown Worlds trust their audience to be patient.
Is Subnautica 2 still in early access development?
Gallegos said early access remains core to Unknown Worlds' DNA as the studio continues work on Subnautica 2.