GamingPickz

Subnautica: Below Zero

Dive into a freezing underwater adventure on an alien planet. Below Zero is set two years after the original Subnautica. Return to Planet 4546B to uncover the truth behind a deadly cover-up. Survive by building habitats, crafting tools, & diving deeper into the world of Subnautica.

HorrorOpen WorldSandboxSurvival

Your like matters. Every heart nudges this game's GamingPickz Score and where it ranks (a small 5% of the score), so the lists get better for everyone.

Would you recommend it?
Player score
9.0/10
108,227 reviews
Released
2021
Developer
Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Platforms
1 systems
Critics
Not scored
Steam Deck
verified
Download
15 GB
We have not written a full review of this game.This is a catalogue entry: everything below comes from a source we can link, checked on a stated date. There is no score and no verdict here, because we only publish those after a reviewer has played the game and written it up properly. Our team may well have played this one. Until someone writes the review, we are not going to imply a verdict we have not put our name to.

What is Subnautica: Below Zero?

Dive into a freezing underwater adventure on an alien planet. Below Zero is set two years after the original Subnautica. Return to Planet 4546B to uncover the truth behind a deadly cover-up. Survive by building habitats, crafting tools, & diving deeper into the world of Subnautica.

Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.

The record

Catalogue facts
First released12 May 2021
DeveloperUnknown Worlds Entertainment
PublisherUnknown Worlds Entertainment
PlatformsPC
GenresHorror, Open World, Sandbox, Survival
Languages19 supported

Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata , seeded TBA. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.

How was Subnautica: Below Zero received?

Players90%positive of 108,227 · Very Positive
Achievements13on Steam

Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.

Accessibility

1 declared features

Seeing

None declared

Hearing

None declared

Input

  • Full controller support

Difficulty

None declared

Method. Features the publisher declared on its own store page. A declaration is a floor, not a review.

What does it support?

Technical support
CapabilitySupport
Controllerfull support
Cloud savesYes
Cross-platform playNo
Mod supportNo official workshop
Online playSingle-player only
In-game purchasesNo
Steam Deckverified
Download size15 GB
Add-on content1 DLC listed
Age gateNone

Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.

What does it cost?

$29.99

Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.

Is Subnautica: Below Zero worth it?

90% of 108,227 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. It costs $29.99 on Steam. About 698 people were playing at once when we last checked, so it is still active.

That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. We have not published our own review of this game.

How long is Subnautica: Below Zero? How long to beat it

Total play time for Subnautica: Below Zero is about 30.9 hours to do everything, and around 20.2 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.

Subnautica: Below Zero length by how much you play
How you playHoursPlayers logged
Just the main story: straight through the critical path20.2h278
Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do26.3h341
Completionist: everything: 100% the game30.9h410

At its current price of $29.99, beating the main story works out to about $1.48 per hour. That is the price divided by the hours, a value read and not a verdict: a longer game costs less per hour, which is not the same as being the better game.

Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.

Subnautica: Below Zero system requirements

The minimum requirements from Subnautica: Below Zero's Steam page. These are what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings.

Subnautica: Below Zero minimum requirements
Memory8 GB RAM (other games at this level)
ProcessorIntel Core i3 4XXX series / AMD Ryzen 3 2.6ghz+
GraphicsIntel HD 530 · runs on a low-end GPU
Storage15 GB (more games this size)
System64-bit OS required

Can your PC run it? Check Subnautica: Below Zero against your exact GPU, CPU and RAM.

Where Subnautica: Below Zero sits on the grid

Compare the whole catalogue

Subnautica: Below Zero plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.

1 games have both

01000100Players →Popularity →

Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.

Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.

  • PC

Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.

See the ultimate grid

How positions are decided

No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
  • Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
  • Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
  • No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
  • A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
  • Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.

Is Subnautica: Below Zero still active? Players right now

698concurrent playerssnapshot, 19 October 2026
76%busier than this shareof the 1,496 games we track
96,660Steam reviews writtenevery one an owner

Subnautica: Below Zero has a modest but active community: 698 people were playing at once when we last read Steam on 19 October 2026. This is a snapshot, not a live counter, and it is a recent concurrent reading rather than an all-time record. For what is trending across the catalogue right now, see the pulse.

How many people own Subnautica: Below Zero

2.0M–5.0MEstimated owners on Steama band, not a figure · SteamSpy
96,660Reviews writtena floor: every one owns it
698Playing at peak, recentlyconcurrent players

This is an estimate, not a sales figure, and the two are not interchangeable. SteamSpy samples public profiles and publishes a range; the range here spans a factor of 2.5, and that width is the honest part of it. We show both ends rather than a midpoint, because a midpoint would look like a measurement.

Steam only. Console and storefront sales are not counted, so a game that sold heavily elsewhere reads low here. Read on 19 October 2026. Where a publisher has announced a real unit figure, that appears separately and carries its source.

Estimated sales for Subnautica: Below Zero

These are estimates, not reported figures. Unknown Worlds Entertainment has not published unit sales for Subnautica: Below Zero, and nobody outside the company can measure them. What follows is arithmetic on the review count, with the method printed below so you can check it or reject it.

3.2M–6.5MEstimated copies soldon Steam, lifetime
$32M–$129MEstimated player spendbefore Valve's cut
$22M–$90MEstimated to the publisherafter the 30% platform cut

How this was calculated

Steam sales track review counts closely enough that dividing one by the other across games with published figures gives a usable multiplier. This is the standard method for estimating sales from outside a publisher.

Sales estimate working
Reviews on Steam108,227
Sales per review30 to 60
List price$29.99
Assumed average selling price33% to 66% of list
SteamSpy owner estimate2.0M–5.0M, a different measure, see below

What this cannot tell you

Steam only. Console, Epic, GOG and retail sales are not in here. For a game that sold heavily on PlayStation this is a fraction of the real number.

The band is wide because the method is imprecise. Review rates vary with price, genre, launch era and how insistently a game asks. Published analyses put the ratio between 30 and 60 for paid games, and we show the whole range rather than picking a point in it.

The owner estimate above measures something else. SteamSpy counts accounts that have the game, which includes free weekends, bundles, giveaways and gifts. It sits higher than a sales figure for that reason, and the two are not alternative answers to the same question.

Revenue is the shakiest line. It assumes an average selling price well below list because most copies move in sales, and it ignores regional pricing, refunds, key resellers and whatever deal the publisher actually has with Valve. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not a figure.

If Unknown Worlds Entertainment publishes a real number we will use that instead and say where it came from. Our editorial policy covers how we handle figures we cannot verify.

Subnautica: Below Zero price & deals: is it on sale?

We have one reading so far: $29.99 on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.

Latest Subnautica: Below Zero updates & patch notes

Pulled from Subnautica: Below Zero's own Steam feed on 5 September 2026. Posts marked as from the studio were written by the developer; the rest are articles Steam syndicated from elsewhere. Every one links to its source.

  1. Steam Global Top Sellers for week of 12 May — 19 May 2026 · SteamDB
  2. Subnautica Free Weekend & Series Sale · From the studio
  3. Below Zero Security Hotfix · From the studio
  4. Below Zero 2025 Patch · From the studio

What readers say about Subnautica: Below Zero

Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.

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Where Subnautica: Below Zero appears

The ranked lists and finder pages Subnautica: Below Zero qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.

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Games like Subnautica: Below Zero

24 games overlap with Subnautica: Below Zero on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are Subnautica, The Planet Crafter and Breathedge.

All 24 games like Subnautica: Below Zero

Part of the Subnautica series

Subnautica: Below Zero is one of 2 Subnautica games we track. See the whole series ranked by the GamingPickz Score, plotted on the grid, and listed in release order:

Every Subnautica game, ranked

Subnautica: Below Zero head to head

Common questions about Subnautica: Below Zero

What platforms is Subnautica: Below Zero on?

Subnautica: Below Zero is available on PC. It first released in 2021.

How much does Subnautica: Below Zero cost?

$29.99 on Steam in the United States, read on 30 August 2026. Prices move often and vary by region, so check the store before buying.

Do players recommend Subnautica: Below Zero?

90% of 108,227 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.

Does Subnautica: Below Zero work on Steam Deck?

Valve rates Subnautica: Below Zero as verified on the Steam Deck, from its own testing. That means it works out of the box with no configuration.

How big is the Subnautica: Below Zero download?

15 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.

Who made Subnautica: Below Zero?

Subnautica: Below Zero was developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment and published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.

Is Subnautica: Below Zero worth it in 2026?

90% of 108,227 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and it is $29.99 on steam. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.

Is Subnautica: Below Zero dead?

No. About 698 people were in-game at once when we last read Steam's concurrent-player figure. Peak activity is higher; this is a recent snapshot, not the all-time peak.

Is Subnautica: Below Zero on sale?

Not at the moment. Subnautica: Below Zero is at its $29.99 list price on Steam, read on 30 August 2026. It has been cheaper before; the price history above shows when.

What are the system requirements for Subnautica: Below Zero?

At minimum, Subnautica: Below Zero needs 8 GB RAM, a Intel Core i3 4XXX series / AMD Ryzen 3 2.6ghz+, a Intel HD 530, 15 GB of storage, from its Steam listing. That is what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings. Check it against your own PC on the can-I-run page.