There’s something uniquely satisfying about hearing your friend’s voice fade to static as they descend too far into the dark. It’s the sound of a plan going wrong. And now Subnautica 2 has it. Unknown Worlds released the Early Access 1.2 update — dubbed the Buddy System — on 19 August, and proximity voice chat is its headline feature. But the update goes considerably further than just letting you hear your teammates panic in real time.
All That’s New in the Buddy System Update
The 1.2 patch is the second major Early Access update for Subnautica 2, and as the name suggests, it’s centred entirely on co-op play. The full feature list includes cross-platform proximity voice chat, player revives, a new emote radial menu, direct inventory trading between players, and a Tracking Tag item that functions as a short-range beacon.
Character customisation also expands with two new options — Jegna and Grace — alongside new colour schemes. For those who prefer to look identical to their crewmates, the game still supports that, but Unknown Worlds says more options will keep arriving throughout Early Access. There are also creature animation improvements, base building UI tweaks, and a range of bug fixes in the patch notes.
Proximity Chat: Every Dive Just Got More Tense
Proximity voice chat is one of those multiplayer features that sounds simple on paper but transforms how a game feels in practice. Creative director Anthony Gallegos walked through it in the update dev diary: talk near your teammates and you hear them clearly; move further apart and the audio shifts to a crackling radio voice that progressively breaks up until silence is all that’s left.
Gallegos suggested using a friend as a canary — send them into a dark cave and listen for whether the static just… stops. It’s a brilliantly tense idea for a survival crafting game built around exploring terrifying alien oceans. The chat has three modes: always on, push to talk, or always off, so players who prefer a quieter dive aren’t forced into it.
Revives, Trading, and Emotes
The update also plugs a gap that co-op survival games often leave frustratingly open: what happens when your partner dies. Previously in Subnautica 2, a downed player would reprint at their Biobed and lose everything. Now, teammates can rush over and share oxygen to revive them — the revived player keeps their equipment and regains a small amount of air. Alternatively, downed players can still choose to reprint immediately if they’d rather not wait for a rescue.
Direct inventory trading is another quality-of-life addition. Instead of dropping resources on the seabed and hoping your friend spots them, you can now walk up to another player, access their inventory, and swap items directly. It’s the kind of feature that sounds obvious once it’s there but makes a real difference to the flow of a session.
Emotes round out the social layer: Wave, Clap, Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, and Frustrated are all available from a new radial menu. They work in water and on land, and can be interrupted by gameplay input — so you can cut short your celebratory wave when something enormous swims into view.
$100,000 for the Real Ocean
Alongside the update, Unknown Worlds announced a $100,000 USD donation to The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit working to remove plastic pollution from the world’s oceans. It’s a cause the studio has supported since the original Subnautica.
“Subnautica began with a love for the ocean, and it means a great deal to continue the conservation work we started with the original game through this donation to The Ocean Cleanup. We will keep doing our part to protect the ocean we have spent so long bringing to life.”
— Fernando Melo, Executive Producer, Unknown Worlds
It’s the kind of gesture that sits well with a series that has always leaned into the wonder and fragility of ocean environments. Whether it’s in a wave of new gaming releases or a quiet patch note dropped mid-week, it’s easy for moments like this to get buried. But $100,000 to a real-world conservation cause from a studio still in Early Access is worth noting.
Subnautica 2 is available now in Early Access on PC. Update 1.2 applies automatically through Steam.
