Subnautica 2's decision to prevent players from killing predators has sparked heated debate among the survival game's audience, but design lead Anthony Gallegos wants to clear up what he sees as fundamental confusion about why Unknown Worlds made that choice.
The restriction became the flashpoint for community pushback before the game's early access launch. Level designer Artyom "Artie" O'Rielly sparked particular controversy in the Subnautica Discord by dismissing kill-focused gameplay, telling players dissatisfied with the limitation to "go play Sons of the Forest or something if you want to kill." That comment, combined with other developer statements, fueled a widespread perception that Unknown Worlds was intentionally crafting what some called a "pacifism game."
Gallegos, who joined the studio in 2021 and was involved as development on the sequel began, rejected that characterization outright in a recent interview with MinnMax. "People have a little bit of a misunderstanding of why we made some of those decisions," he said. The no-kill mechanic was not, he insisted, rooted in any studio-wide ideology about non-violence or pacifist game design.
To underscore the point, Gallegos highlighted Unknown Worlds' actual heritage. The studio was founded by modders who created Half-Life mods centered on combat, he noted. Co-founder Charlie Cleveland even drew inspiration from the movie Aliens in developing the original Subnautica. The studio's Natural Selection titles were essentially attempts at creating a legally distinct Aliens video game experience.
The first Subnautica deliberately excluded guns, but that decision stemmed from Cleveland's belief that game design could explore a world without adding to the existing abundance of violent games. It was a creative choice, not an ideological stand against violence itself. The current framing around the sequel, Gallegos acknowledged, had strayed from that original intent and now suggested Unknown Worlds was "leaning into Subnautica being a pacifism game, which wasn't our intent."
So what was the actual reasoning? Gallegos outlined two interconnected motivations. First, Unknown Worlds wanted players to experience the underwater world as inhabitants rather than dominators. The game's core message centered on learning to coexist with an alien ecosystem, not conquering it.
Second, and perhaps more importantly from a design perspective, the constraint served a specific gameplay function. Gallegos cited the work of Frictional Games, developer of the survival horror game Soma, which published analysis showing that giving players combat options undermines tension regardless of how poor the developers intentionally made the fighting mechanics. Players consistently prefer to master even "crappy" combat systems rather than endure prolonged threat.
He pointed to Silent Hill 2 as a clear example. Players master the protagonist's pipe weapon despite its awkward handling because combat offers refuge from constant danger. "It's way better to kill every creature in every hallway and then freely run through it than it is to dodge them when they're scary," Gallegos explained.
By removing combat as an option entirely, Unknown Worlds preserves what Gallegos called "omnipresent tension" as a core experience. That design philosophy, borrowed from titles like Soma and Alien Isolation, shapes how Subnautica 2 asks players to navigate predatory encounters.
The studio has committed to adding mitigation options in future updates, giving players non-lethal ways to manage threats. Those systems could include creature feeders that reduce predator aggression through satiation, a real-world survival principle Gallegos illustrated with the example of people who keep alligators as pets by maintaining their food supply. The team also plans to add visual feedback so players recognize when they're hitting creatures with tools like hammers, making those interactions feel more meaningful.
"For us it's mostly about seeking cool ways for the players to feel smart about it," Gallegos said. The focus remains on making players feel resourceful and clever within the constraints, not expanding combat possibilities.
Subnautica 2 has proven a commercial juggernaut despite the killing fish controversy. The game sold 4 million copies since launching into early access on May 14, reaching over 467,000 concurrent players on Steam at its peak. That success apparently surprised even the developers. The sales figures matter beyond bragging rights: publisher Krafton reportedly agreed to pay Unknown Worlds a $250 million earnout, the same bonus that triggered a high-profile legal dispute involving the studio's leadership earlier this year.
Author Emily Chen: "Gallegos makes a solid technical case for why killing creatures would drain Subnautica 2's psychological core, but the framing problem remains his team's to solve, not the community's to accept on faith."
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