Subnautica 2 design lead Anthony Gallegos has addressed the backlash surrounding Unknown Worlds’ decision to block players from killing predators in the underwater survival sequel, clarifying what the developers actually had in mind.
The no-kill mechanic has become the most heated talking point around Subnautica 2. Unknown Worlds has pledged to introduce better ways to handle threats, including mitigation tools through future updates, but killing predators outright will remain off the table. This approach has sparked intense debate among the community, as seen in recent discussions about how players are learning to fend off marine predators.
Before the early access release on May 14, Unknown Worlds explained its stance on keeping players from conquering or dominating the ocean environment. The studio made clear there would be no tools for slaying creatures that cross your path. “We aren’t a killing game,” level designer Artyom “Artie” O’Rielly said in the Subnautica Discord. “Go play Sons of the Forest or something if you want to kill.”
That remark, along with similar statements, irritated portions of the Subnautica 2 player base and helped fuel the no-kill debate that has consumed discussions in recent weeks. Through it all, a story took hold that Unknown Worlds had intentionally built a “pacifism game,” but that this simply is not accurate.
Gallegos, who came aboard at Unknown Worlds in 2021 roughly a year before Subnautica 2 development began, noted that “people have a little bit of a misunderstanding of why we made some of those decisions.”
“A source of a lot of the negative feedback we’ve gotten is that we’ve changed the game in the sense that we’re not letting you kill predators,” Gallegos continued. “And that was not some decision made because we’re like, ‘We’re a game about pacifism or we’re a non-violent studio.’ The studio was founded by modders who made Half-Life mods and their first mods were all about shooting aliens. They loved the movie Aliens and they wanted to make an Aliens video game that was legally distinct. That is what Natural Selection 1 and 2 are basically.”
According to Gallegos, Unknown Worlds co-founder Charlie Cleveland drew from the movie Aliens when crafting the original Subnautica. Cleveland aimed to build a game without firearms because he believed there was room for something that did not add to the pile of violent titles, which Gallegos stressed was not meant as criticism of violent games themselves.
Even so, Gallegos acknowledged that “this idea that we really are leaning into Subnautica being a pacifism game, which wasn’t our intent” has taken root. The real reasoning, he broke down, had two parts. First, Unknown Worlds wanted to avoid giving players the sense that they were a “dominator over the world, because the message of the game very much is people learning to live in parallel with the world that they’re in.”
Second, the choice stemmed from design philosophy influenced by games like Soma and Alien Isolation. Gallegos pointed to a blog post from Soma developer Frictional Games where the team described discovering that whenever players received combat options, they would always judge mastering even “crappy” fighting preferable to enduring ongoing tension and fear.
Gallegos also brought up Konami’s horror standout Silent Hill 2, where players will perfect pipe combat despite its clunkiness “because it’s way better to kill every creature in every hallway and then freely run through it than it is to dodge them when they’re scary.”
“And so by removing the option to deal with combat, it means that the omnipresent tension and stuff like that gets to be there,” Gallegos went on. “And so that’s really where we’re trying to lean into it from.”
Unknown Worlds has been transparent about adding methods to reduce predator danger in Subnautica 2 through upcoming patches. Gallegos also mentioned the team intends to add creature flinch reactions so players can tell when they are striking fish with the hammer.
“For us it’s mostly about seeking cool ways for the players to feel smart about it,” Gallegos said. “Some of the stuff we’ve talked about is like, what if you could build feeders and you could keep creatures so well fed that they don’t have any interest in you, which is like something you see in real life when you see people that keep alligators as pets, right? They’re like, ‘Oh, alligators are perfectly safe as long as they’re not hungry, you know?'”
While arguments over killing fish persist, Subnautica 2 has already proven itself a commercial hit. The game attracted more than 467,000 peak concurrent players on Steam and has sold a massive 4 million copies since its early access debut, a level of success Gallegos said caught the team off guard. The sales performance has been so strong that publisher Krafton has reportedly committed to a $250 million earnout payment for the developers, a bonus that figured prominently in the well-publicized legal conflict with former Unknown Worlds leadership.
If you are getting started with Subnautica 2, we have a Things to Do First in Subnautica 2 guide to check out before you dive in, plus resource location guides to help you find Titanium, Silver, and more. Discover blackbox and supply crate locations on our interactive Subnautica 2 map, and make sure you do not miss any Angel Comb Adaptations or Blueprints.
