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Subnautica 2 has received a major update - just after we reviewed it - and apparently Unknown Worlds has decided that the ocean wasn't quite stressful enough when experienced with friends.
The Buddy System update, also known as Early Access 1.2, is now live and is very much focused on making the game's co-op experience feel like an actual co-op experience rather than four people independently swimming around the same large body of water.
That means proximity voice chat, player revives, direct item trading, emotes and a new Tracking Tag, along with a healthy collection of smaller improvements and fixes.
And having spent a good chunk of time with Subnautica 2 already, I have to admit that some of these additions sound less like new features and more like things that should have been there all along.
The biggest thing about this update is that it understands what makes co-op games fun.
It is not necessarily about giving everyone more things to do. Sometimes it is simply about making the other people in your game feel like they are actually there.
Subnautica 2's new Buddy System update takes several steps towards doing exactly that.
The headline feature is proximity voice chat, and this is probably the addition that will have the biggest effect on how groups actually play.
Instead of everyone simply talking to everyone else regardless of where they are, your voice now behaves according to your position in the world. Move further away from your friends and they become harder to hear, adding distance and separation to the conversation.
It sounds like a small thing.
It really isn't.
Subnautica is a game built around atmosphere and exploration, and being able to hear your friends becoming more distant as you swim away from them fits remarkably well with that design.
It also introduces the possibility of one of the most important multiplayer decisions in gaming:
"I'll just go and have a quick look over here."
You already know how this ends.
The feature can also be configured as always on, push-to-talk or completely disabled, so you are not forced to have everyone broadcasting their every thought into the depths.
The second major addition is player revives.
Previously, getting yourself killed in Subnautica 2 meant dealing with the consequences and eventually reprinting back at your assigned Biobed. That is perfectly reasonable when playing alone, but co-op opens up another possibility.
Now, when a player goes down, their buddy can revive them before they have to reprint.
The revived player keeps their equipment and gets a small amount of oxygen back, meaning a friend can potentially turn what would have been an expensive mistake into a narrow escape.
Which is good news for anyone who regularly makes expensive mistakes.
It also adds another layer of decision-making to exploration. If your friend goes down somewhere dangerous, do you risk going back for them? Or do you decide that their equipment is probably replaceable and swim very quickly in the opposite direction?
I suspect the answer will depend heavily on who the friend is.
The Buddy System update also introduces direct player-to-player item trading.
Players can now interact with each other and exchange inventory items directly, which sounds like another relatively simple addition until you think about how often resource management becomes part of a Subnautica expedition.
One player finds something useful that another player desperately needs. Previously, there was considerably more faffing around involved in getting those resources where they needed to be.
Now you can simply hand the thing over.
It is not revolutionary, but good co-op systems rarely need to be. Anything that reduces friction between players is a good thing, particularly in a game where your inventory is constantly filling up with things you absolutely refuse to throw away because surely they will be useful later.
They will not be useful later.
You will keep them anyway.
The update also adds a new radial emote menu, with Wave, Clap, Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down and Frustrated available to use both in and out of the water.
At first glance, this is probably the least important addition in the update.
It is also the one I can already see being abused relentlessly.
Someone swims back to the base with an impressive haul of resources?
Clap.
Someone accidentally gets eaten?
Frustrated.
Someone suggests going into a suspiciously dark cave?
Thumbs down.
This is important communication.
One of the less immediately obvious additions is the new Tracking Tag.
The tag can be placed inside carryable objects such as lockers and acts as a short-range beacon. If it is being carried when you reprint, it also increases the range of the black box.
That sounds like a relatively minor quality-of-life feature until you remember what happens when you die a long way from home.
Suddenly, finding your way back to your lost gear becomes slightly less of an expedition in its own right.
And anything that reduces the amount of time I spend wondering which direction I was actually travelling in is welcome.
The update also adds two new character options, Jegna and Grace, along with two additional character colour schemes.
They are not the sort of additions that fundamentally change the game, but they are a nice reminder that Unknown Worlds is continuing to flesh out the world around the core survival mechanics.
And if you are going to spend dozens of hours underwater with your friends, you might as well look slightly different while doing it.
As with most substantial Early Access updates, there is considerably more here than the headline features.
Signals have been adjusted to make them clearer, with icons changing size as you get closer and additional text appearing when you hover over more distant signals.
The Builder menu now remembers its scroll position, which is exactly the sort of tiny change you probably do not think about until it is missing.
Pinned recipes also behave more helpfully, highlighting when you acquire resources relevant to them rather than leaving you to repeatedly check whether you finally found that one thing you needed.
Save Codes can now be pasted directly into the Cloud Save Download field, audiologs show elapsed and remaining playback time, and the in-game Feedback Tool now allows save files to be attached.
None of these features is going to sell the update by itself.
Collectively, though, they make the game feel a little more considered.
The Buddy System update also makes a number of changes to Subnautica 2's fauna.
Several creatures have received new flinch animations and visual effects, including the Marrowbreach, Hammerhead, Nibbler, Needlershark, Epicurean and Twin Eel.
Bulletheads have also been adjusted so that they deal more damage, but can now be dodged.
Because apparently the correct response to a creature becoming more dangerous is to give the player an opportunity to demonstrate better reflexes.
There are also additional Coral Crab animations, a revised Bloom Parasite model and animation work on Jelly Ring tentacles.
The ocean remains busy, strange and occasionally hostile.
So, basically, nothing has changed there.
The interesting thing about Buddy System is that none of its headline features fundamentally changes what Subnautica 2 is.
You are still exploring an alien ocean. You are still collecting resources. You are still building bases. You are still discovering new creatures and trying to work out whether that noise you just heard is something interesting or something that would very much like to remove you from the food chain.
What the update does is make playing that game with somebody else feel considerably better.
Proximity chat gives the world a sense of physical distance. Revives make exploring together feel more meaningful. Trading removes unnecessary inventory management. Emotes give players another way to communicate. The Tracking Tag helps with the inevitable consequences of doing something stupid.
Together, those systems make the other person in your game feel much more like a genuine companion rather than simply another character swimming around nearby.
There is also a rather nice real-world addition accompanying the Buddy System update.
Unknown Worlds announced a $100,000 USD donation to The Ocean Cleanup, continuing the studio's real-world connection to ocean conservation.
It is particularly fitting for Subnautica.
The entire series is built around making us care about an ocean. Granted, this particular ocean contains things that would quite happily eat us, but the underlying idea is still the same: the more fascinating the environment becomes, the more you want to see it protected.
The donation is not part of the game itself, obviously, but it is a nice piece of work to see attached to an update that is all about spending more time exploring underwater.
It is also worth remembering that Buddy System is only one step in the Early Access journey.
Unknown Worlds has already teased more substantial additions further down the road, including a new region, additional story content, progression changes and new vehicles.
That makes Buddy System feel less like a traditional content expansion and more like another layer being added to the foundations of Subnautica 2.
And that is probably the right way to look at it.
We are still very much playing an Early Access game. The finished Subnautica 2 is going to be a much larger thing than what we have today.
But the more these systems arrive, the easier it becomes to see how that eventual game is going to work.
If you already own Subnautica 2 and have been waiting for a reason to get back underwater with friends, Buddy System is a very good one.
Proximity chat alone could dramatically change how a group plays, while revives and trading remove some of the friction that can make survival games with friends more cumbersome than they need to be.
If you have not played the game yet, I would still recommend reading our Subnautica 2 review before deciding whether Early Access is for you.
Personally, though, I am increasingly convinced that Subnautica 2 is becoming one of those games where having friends is less about making the experience safer and more about giving you someone else to blame when everything goes horribly wrong.
Which, when you think about it, is probably what the Buddy System was designed for all along.
The Buddy System update does not reinvent Subnautica 2. It does something considerably more useful: it makes the game's co-op systems feel like they belong in the game.
Proximity voice chat, revives, player trading and emotes all add something meaningful to playing with friends, while the smaller improvements continue to polish the Early Access experience.
Most importantly, it makes me want to get back underwater.
Preferably with a buddy.
Preferably one who is faster than me.
Because I have met the fish.
I know how this ends.
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