Believe it or not, the original\u00a0Subnautica (2018)\u00a0actually included basic PC VR support well before its 1.0 launch. With its long-awaited sequel coming out this week though, you probably shouldn\u2019t hold your breath waiting for official VR support.<\/p>\n
Unknown Worlds Entertainment is releasing\u00a0Subnautica 2\u00a0in early access on May 14th, which, as we\u2019ve heard for years now,\u00a0won\u2019t include any official VR support of any kind.<\/p>\n
As far back at game\u2019s 2024 FAQ<\/a>,\u00a0the studio said adding VR support to\u00a0Subnautica 2\u00a0\u201cseems unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n Striking more of a conciliatory tone, the game\u2019s Creative Producer Scott MacDonald more recently said this in a\u00a0developer Q&A last summer<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we\u2019re big fans of VR, and I have loads of headsets myself, we\u2019re not currently working on VR support, but who knows what could happen in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Notably, the original Subnautica\u00a0got rudimentary Oculus Rift DK2 support just one week after its early access launch in 2014, and even launched on Oculus Home in 2016<\/a> alongside the first consumer Oculus Rift.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Still, the game\u2019s VR implementation left much to be desired, feeling unfinished, especially by today\u2019s standards. Despite being extremely atmospheric and (at times) pretty immersive, it ultimately lacks many of the native VR touches you\u2019d expect for more than a quick jaunt, such as awkward UI, weak controller support, and performance problems abound, requiring mods to get into a sufficiently playable state.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, Unknown Worlds Entertainment hasn\u2019t shown any real signs of interest in building out first-party VR support for any of its games beyond the first Subnautica; the studio\u2019s first big follow-up, Subnautica: Below Zero (2021),\u00a0was even released at the height of the COVID-19 VR boom\u2014the same year\u00a0Facebook rebranded to Meta<\/a>\u2014but never gained official VR support.<\/p>\n There is still hope though that you\u2019ll be able to jump into the deep waters of Subnautica 2 in VR. Because it\u2019s\u00a0being built in Unreal Engine 5, VR injector tools like Praydog\u2019s UEVR<\/a> are probably going to be your best bet while waiting (possibly indefinitely) for official VR support. Community-sourced settings usually crop up closely after launch too, like we saw with Bethesda\u2019s remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV:\u00a0Oblivion<\/a>\u00a0last year.<\/p>\n Early access also means we can expect more features over the course of the next two to three years, as the studio says it will likely be that long before we see an official 1.0 release, although official VR implementation doesn\u2019t look likely at this point. Whatever the case, we\u2019ll have our eyes peeled for mods and more tips on how to play Subnautica 2 in VR.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Believe it or not, the original\u00a0Subnautica (2018)\u00a0actually included basic PC VR support well before its 1.0 launch. With…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3162],"tags":[53,16,15,3243,3244],"class_list":{"0":"post-954744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-virtual-reality","12":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116561510852382961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n