Subnautica is not finished yet. Being in Early Access means that it is changing and morphing all the time. This guide explains how to find out what the development team is doing, how you can tell them what you think, when you can expect updates, and how to get them.

Subnautica receives a major update roughly every few weeks. There is no defined time, but it is usually some-time on either Wednesday or Thursday. These updates are delivered automatically if you have Subnautica in your Steam Library, you don't need to do anything to get them.

If you want to receive more frequent development updates, you can opt in to 'Experimental' branch. Experimental branch is updated automatically twice per day. Experimental updates are usually less stable, more broken, and more crazy than weekly updates.

Warning:Experimental updates will sometimes make Subnautica unplayable, and often include horrible bugs! Use caution when deciding to play on Experimental branch!

To get Experimental updates twice per day, right click on Subnautica in your Steam Library and click 'properties.'



Click on the 'betas' tab, and then select 'experimental' from the drop down list. If you can't click on the list, try restarting Steam or leaving the tab open for a little bit - It can sometimes take a little whole to load options.



Sometimes, Experimental branch gets a little bit messy. Actually, it often gets a little bit completely broken and unplayable. If you ever want to go back to normal weekly updates, go back to the 'betas' tab and select 'none' from the drop down list.

You can see what the Subnautica development team is working on at any time. Subnautica's development is tracked using a tool called 'Trello.' Trello is like a big board covered in sticky-notes, where the sticky notes are on steroids.


To see the Subnautica Trello board, click on this link[trello.com]. The board is covered in 'cards,' which represent a task or group of tasks. Each card can be assigned to developers, and have images, videos, notes, categories, and other information attached. Click on each one to see information and progress.


Cards are bundled into lists - the vertical columns you see running across the board. The development team uses different combinations of lists to represent progress. Sometimes, there are weekly 'To Do,' 'Doing,' and 'Done' lists. Other times, there are lists for specific objectives, like 'Steam Early Access Dec 16' or 'Cyclops Submarine.' In general, every combination will at least have 'To Do' and 'Done' - So you can see what we're doing, what we're planning to do, and what we’ve done.

If you're really keen on the development team completing a particular task, you can vote on it. Sign in with a Trello account (they're free), and a vote button will appear.


The Subnautica Trello board is not an 'exact' tool for seeing what the development team has added to the game. For that, read on to Changes and Checkins…

If Trello is a 'rough idea' of what we're working on, then 'checkins' are a measure of what we've actually done to the game. Follow this this link to the checkin list.[subnautica.unknownworlds.com] You'll see lots of little text messages, like 'implemented EcoEvent statistics in Inspector.'


Each message represents a 'checkin' - A modification of Subnautica's 'source repository.' The source repository is the collection of files and folders that is 'built' to make Subnautica. Building takes the files (textures, scripts, 3D models, etc) and mushes them together into a piece of software your computer can run.

Every time you get an update via Steam, Subnautica has been built anew, and any checkin made since the last 'build' will be included in that update. By looking at the checkin list, you can see what we're doing to Subnautica before it lands in your Steam Library.

Email? Are you kidding? That technology from the 1800's? How can this possibly be relevant to Subnautica Early Access? Hold on a moment, there's an explanation!

Each week, Subnautica receives an update, and each week the development team creates a short news piece to talk about some of the stuff that has been added and changed. This news post gets sent to the Subnautica Mailing List.


Not everyone that buys Subnautica has the time to play every update every week, so the Subnautica Mailing List[eepurl.com] is a great way to stay up to date on development progress. You can glance at the weekly news email every so often, and jump in and try the update when something catches your interest, like sharks with lasers or teleporting manta-rays.

To sign up to the list, click this link.[eepurl.com]

A Trello board[trello.com] tracks the major and medium severity bugs that the team is aware of. You can watch team progress in addressing issues by visiting this board[trello.com]. Small and minor bugs are not usually tracked here.


Got a bug you would like to report? Check out the development feedback guide to see all the ways you can tell the team about what you have found.

When a game is in Early Access, it's very important that the development team communicate what they are up to. It absolutely sucks to buy an Early Access game and feeling like the developers have stopped working on it. At Unknown Worlds, we hope you feel like the above tools let you see and understand progress on Subnautica.

If you have ideas about how we could open up development even more, please let us know. Leave a comment on this guide, and we'll see if we can take up your suggestion!