Is There Co-Op Multiplayer in Subnautica? What You Need to Know
Subnautica has finally arrived in its full, official release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and players will be busy exploring the vast depths of the alien oceans in the game. While there may be plenty of creatures in the seas you’re exploring, it can still be a lonely experience on your own. Here’s whether or not there’s co-op multiplayer in Subnautica.
Officially, unfortunately, at this moment in time Subnautica does not have co-op multiplayer. Over on the game’s official forums, Game Director ‘Flayra’ posted the following message regarding co-op multiplayer in Subnautica.
“We’ve been getting tons and tons of questions and requests about whether we’re going to add multiplayer to Subnautica or not.
Back in our early prototypes we always had multiplayer in the back of our mind. But we had so much to learn about the game, multiplayer was never a priority. Eventually, we hit early access and now it would take many man-years to add any kind of multiplayer to Subnautica. We don’t want to spend years more working on Subnautica before v1.0, so we sadly have come to terms with the fact that we won’t be adding any kind of multiplayer or coop to the game.
Maybe one day we’ll start over on a different engine and make a new Subnautica game based around coop. A game where one person is piloting the sub, another person is poring over readouts and computers, another is repairing the engines and yet another is radioing for help in a dark biome, where their Seamoth is almost out of juice. We would love to play that game.
But until then, we’re going to finish up Subnautica the way it was meant to be: one person trying to survive in a massive, dangerous, beautiful, alien world.”
Though this may come as disappointing news, there is a bit of a workaround in the works by Subnautica fans for a co-op multiplayer experience. This only applies to PC players, however. PS4 and Xbox One owners are stuck to playing Subnautica in single-player for now.
How to Play the Subnautica Co-Op Multiplayer Mod
Subnautica Nitrox is an open-source co-op multiplayer mod for the game that is still slowly but surely being improved upon.
You can download it from Nexus Mods, but it does require a bit of faffing to get installed and running, as you’ll need to set up a development environment for it. It’s not something that’s recommended to be downloaded for casual play just yet until a stable public release has been made.
You can check out the wiki above, or the teaser video here to get an idea of how it works. We’ve included the steps to install the Nitrox co-op multiplayer mod for Subnautica here. Be warned, it’s pretty complex.
That’s all you need to know regarding whether or not Subnautica has co-op multiplayer right now. For more tips, tricks, and guides on the game, be sure to search Twinfinite or check out some of our most popular guides down below.
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TL;DR
Question: Is there co-op multiplayer in Subnautica?
Answer: Playing the official version on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, there is no co-op multiplayer. However, there is a mod in development for PC players to enable co-op multiplayer, though it’s still in early stages and can be tricky to install. Check our guide for more information.
