As you explore the depths of Subnautica 2’s watery world, it can be quite easy to get yourself turned about or unsure where to go next. To help you chart your course through these murky seas, we spent a ton of time meticulously touring each of the biomes currently available in the early access build, and here’s everything you need to know about the notable regions in Subnautica 2. Spoilers ahead!
Subnautica 2’s explorable regions currently are split into two areas, a smaller introductory area that has a whole lot packed into a relatively small footprint, and a second, more advanced and dangerous zone that’s a lot more spread out since by that time you’ll be doing the vast majority of your traveling via the trusty Tadpole submarine. Let’s go over the starting region first:
Starting Biome
Around the Lifepod
After you’ve completed the opening sequence and emerged from your lifepod, you’ll find yourself in the shallowest, least dangerous area of the game, filled with brightly colored coral and plenty of food and water within reach.
This area is perfectly optimized for you to get your bearings, and begin collecting the most common materials you’ll need to begin your journey, like Titanium, Copper, and Quartz, all of which can be found all over the region, but especially within the caves, nooks, and crannies in the immediate area.
This area is also home to some important starting resources, like the welcome center southeast of the lifepod that you’ll be directed to early on in the story, and the second Angel Comb to the north of the lifepod that will unlock your ability to digest alien food.
This is a great place to build your first base, and will likely be a spot you spend a lot of time in during the first leg of your adventure, so we’ll be using it and the lifepod you crawled out of as a handy reference point for all the other areas in the starting region.
West of the Lifepod
Abandoned Settlements
Directly west-northwest of the lifepod are some larger abandoned settlements that have fallen into ruin, including Camp One, which is swarming with nibbler sharks and has a few craftables to be scanned, and farther west still, the Old Habitat, which is home to a whole bunch of important loot, including an incredibly useful resource scanner that can be crafted and help you find any resources in your immediate vicinity.
Both of these ruined abodes will be places you’re inevitably sent to fairly early in the story, as you continually visit NoA and seek out the black boxes. You’ll know you’re in the right spot when you start seeing these enormous jellyfish all over the place, called BFJs.
Blighted Area
In this same neck of the woods, roughly west-southwest of the life pod, you’ll find a few other biomes, the first of which is the blighted area that’s filled with some pretty deadly fish.
You’ll need a Sonic Resonator to purge this place of the infection that’s taken hold, which will also grant you access to the third of the Angel Comb mutations, which allows you to survive more easily in heated zones, which is required to access regions with oppressive heat later on.
Sea Anemone Area
Beyond this infected region, farther southwest, you’ll also find an area filled with sea anemones.
This region doesn’t have much of great importance except for one thing: necrolei cysts, which are essential to crafting some of the more advanced equipment in the starting region. This is important, because until you unlock farming in the second region, this is the only way to access this resource, so you’ll want to make regular trips here to harvest the cysts.
East of the Lifepod
Pivoting to the east of the lifepod, you’ll immediately find the massive hole you first crawled out of, and across this gap, a giant clam-like creature that hides some valuable resources for those brave enough to go inside its maw. Good luck with that.
South of the Hole
Farther southeast of the lifepod, at the south end of the giant hole, you’ll find another colonist bunker with one of those fancy biobed upgrades, but not much else, aside from some large deposits of materials that can be harvested with a Sonic Resonator – a good place to remember when you need some quick mats that are quite close to the lifepod area.
North of the Hole
And just north of this giant hole, northeast of the lifepod, is a large open area filled with salt deposits, and giant coral crabs running around.
The Hole
Finally, there’s the actual hole itself, which you actually can explore, but you’ll need access to a tadpole that’s been upgraded to dive quite deep, which you won’t be able to craft for some time. And even when you do, I honestly didn’t find much of note on my return trip, aside from a super scary descent into darkness.
North of the Lifepod
The final area in the starting zone is the north and northwest areas, which are dominated by a region that’s so hot you’ll need to have grabbed the Angel Comb upgrade to survive.
It’s also advisable to have crafted a Tadpole vehicle by the time you visit this area, as you’ll have to dive quite deep to reach some of the most valuable materials found here, and won’t have nearly a large enough oxygen tank to do so by this point.
This area is notable for a bunch of reasons, including the high volume of materials that you can almost exclusively only find in this region, like gold, lithium, and sulfur. But you’ll also be directed toward this area for story reasons, including the recovering of a whole bunch of blackboxes, which are well-worth the trouble.
You’ll also find another abandoned settlement here with a pretty important chassis upgrade for the Tadpole here, which you should definitely scan and craft before heading out.
And that about wraps up our tour of the starting region. It can feel pretty big at first, but once you’ve crafted some fins or a Tadpole and checked out each of these areas once or twice, you’ll quickly realize it’s a pretty straightforward wheel-and-spoke with the lifepod right near the middle, and only a few caves to explore here and there, making it really easy to get your bearings and understand where everything is pretty quickly.
Next we’ll move on to the abyss before crossing over to the second and final region.
The Abyss
Once you’ve gotten the hang of this opening region, you’re ready to move on to the second region, which houses numerous materials and upgrades you’ll need to progress. Standing in between you and that area, perhaps as a test of your worthiness, is a massive chasm with very little in it save for a massive squid monster called the Collector Leviathan.
This dude will show up every time you show your face in this area, and unless you’re quick about it, will absolutely ruin your day.
Once you’ve made the proper preparations and said your prayers, make a mad dash for the other side, doing your best to ignore any roars and scary noises along the way.
The Second Biome
Once you’ve crossed the Abyss, you’ll find yourself in the second and final region of Subnautica 2, at least in these early days of its Early Access period. This area is significantly larger than the first zone, though very much less compact, since you’re expected to be making most of your travel via Tadpole by this point. The first thing you’ll notice is that most of this region is much lower underwater than the first, and you’ll run out of oxygen much faster until you’ve crafted better equipment.
The first area you’ll find on this side of the map is centered around a massive alien structure right in the middle that looks a bit like an observatory.
The area immediately surrounding it is a great place to set up shop with your first base in the region and use it as a staging ground to explore the rest this zone has to offer.
East of the Observatory
I recommend starting by going east of the observatory, where you’ll find alien ruins and another abandoned outpost. This one is very useful, because within it you’ll find a safe zone that already has a few storage containers filled with useful loot, a biobed to set as your new respawn location in case you die, and a fully functional fabricator for crafting the essentials before you’ve built a new base. Most importantly, this building has two farming plots outside, one on top of the building and one beside it, which you can scan to unlock the ability to set up farms of your own.
Just below this abandoned facility, you’ll find some caves with useful materials, including a small heated pocket with gold, sulfur, and lead, which is great to use for energy generation if you’ve unlocked thermal generators.
West of the Observatory
To the west of the observatory, you’ll find an area with flora and fauna to consume, which is a resource that’s much harder to come by in this area, so make sure to come here regularly to grab slugs and fish, or, if you’re like me, just build a home here so it’s always within reach.
Beneath the Observatory
Directly underneath the observatory, you’ll find some small, but winding caverns filled with squids that like to ram you, and another infected region. However, you won’t be able to clear this infection until you’ve upgraded your Sonic Resonator, which you’re unlikely to have done by the time you first find this place, so I recommend just doing your best to avoid it for now.
This entire hub near the observatory is a great place to get your bearing and establish a new base, but it’s honestly mostly a staging ground for the more exotic locations farther north.
North of the Observatory
Once you’ve built a base and gathered the essentials to stave off starvation, you’ll want to dive deeper, taking care to not go lower than your poor Tadpole currently allows for. Until you’ve upgraded it, that means stopping shy of 250 meters and making short trips by fin to grab resources lower down.
Here you’ll start to see Celestine deposits all around the sides of the observatory area on the walls and floor once you’ve dove deeper than 250 meters. Similarly, north of the observatory area houses plenty of Atacamite deposits, usually embedded in the sea floor below 250 meters. You’ll have to make short trips to grab these materials at first, until you’ve upgraded your gear a bit.
Meanwhile, northeast of the observatory plateau, you’ll find a nest of needler sharks swarming around a very vertical area. This region has some valuable creature enamel, another new material needed for crafting more advanced gear, and a blackbox hidden within the caves here. Just be sure to keep moving to avoid the needle darts these creepy eels keep shooting at you the entire time you’re here.
Once you’ve gathered enough materials and explored enough to scan for the upgrades you need to progress, you’ll be able to dive deep enough to explore the alien structures and deep canyons that make up the last areas currently explorable in the game. These areas house a whole bunch of new secrets – schematics, new materials like troilite and conduit crystals, and a grab bag of new enemies to square off against, including electric creatures with the deadly ability to drain your Tadpole of power in hopes of stranding you in these deadly depths (I recommend bringing some extra batteries for your Tadpole).
Alien Power Plant
Just north of the observatory area you’ll have familiarized yourself with by now, you’ll find a massive alien power plant that stretches all the way to the bottom of the sea floor and up near the ocean’s surface. The important bits, however, are below, where you’ll find valuable materials, and new infected areas to cleanse once you’ve crafted the upgraded Sonic Resonator, which grants you access to another Angel Comb upgrade if you’re able to find all the nodes in question. Farther up the power plant, you’ll also find a place to repair the alien machine, and a nearby console to interact with it once you’ve gotten that Angel Comb upgrade down below.
Following along this path farther north, you’ll want to curve along the canyon walls, as you’ll probably notice that this area is increasingly filled with red barriers that inform you you’ve reached the edge of the map that’s been developed so far. You might even notice some leviathans hiding beyond these walls, though there’s little reason to draw their ire.
Poisonous Swamp
At the end of this canyon, as you curve to the west, you’ll find the final biome that’s currently available, a poisonous swamp with deposits of troilite and axum bacteria – some of the rarest materials you can find as of now. This area is basically just a small puddle, but it’s got some alien machinery for you to scan stuck in it, some deadly new fish hovering about, and all the material you need to get the last upgrades you might need. You’ll also need at least some of these materials to repair the powerplant southeast of here that you passed on your way.
You’ll want to explore the surrounding area for some more scannable upgrades, black boxes with new bits of lore (which you’ll be directed to via NoA if you don’t find them on your own), and more of the rarest materials you can claim. This whole stretch of sea, from the power plant to the poisonous swamp, hides all the last bits and baubles you need to reach the end of the road that’s currently available in Subnautica 2, so take your time exploring it.
