If you’re a long-time Subnautica fan like me, you probably spent dozens of hours exploring the first game’s alien oceans with friends via unofficial co-op mods. Now that Subnautica 2 is in early access, one of the most common questions popping up across fan forums and social media is how many people can play Subnautica 2 together in a single session. I’ve been testing the game’s multiplayer features for the past six weeks with groups of different sizes, so I’ve got all the official and modded details you need to plan your next co-op dive.
Official Max Player Count for Subnautica 2 Multiplayer
As of the latest early access update, Unknown Worlds Entertainment has set the official base game player cap at 4 players per co-op session. This limit applies to both online co-op and shared split-screen sessions, though split-screen is only available for 2 players on console right now. The devs have stated they landed on 4 players as a sweet spot that balances performance and fun, given how many dynamic assets the game loads at any given time.
For example, when you’re near a leviathan or a large explorable wreck, the game is processing thousands of moving parts at once, and adding extra players multiplies that load significantly. I ran a test last week with 4 friends, all on PC, hosted on a mid-tier Ryzen 5 setup with 500mbps internet, and we didn’t run into a single desync or crash over 3 hours of exploring the shallow biomes and building a shared base. We only started to see minor lag when all 4 of us started building elaborate base additions at the same time, but it cleared up as soon as we slowed down our building spree.
What Impacts Your Subnautica 2 Player Limit in Practice?
Just because the official cap is 4 players doesn’t mean every group will have a smooth experience with that many people. There are a handful of factors that can lower your stable player count, even if you’re running the unmodded base game. I’ve run into all of these at some point during my testing, so you’ll want to keep them in mind before you invite your whole friend group to play:
- Host device performance: If the player hosting the session has a low-end CPU or spotty internet, you may need to drop to 2-3 players to avoid lag or crashes. The host’s device is responsible for processing all world data, so it’s the biggest bottleneck for larger groups.
- Mod usage: Some high-resolution texture mods or custom creature packs eat up extra bandwidth, so you’ll have a lower stable player count if you run modded sessions. Even small quality-of-life mods can add extra processing load that adds up when you have multiple players.
- Exploration range: If all players are spread out across different biomes, the game has to load more assets at once, which can cause desyncs even for 4 players. This is especially true if one player is in the shallow starting biome and another is 1000 meters down in the deep sea areas.
Last month, I hosted a session on my old 3-year-old laptop with a GTX 1650, and we had to ask one friend to leave when we all traveled to the Deep Twisty Bridges area. The frame rate dropped to 12fps for everyone in the group, and we kept seeing duplicate resources that disappeared when we tried to pick them up. Don’t force the 4-player cap if your host setup can’t handle it, it’ll just ruin the fun for everyone.
Can You Add More Players to Subnautica 2 With Mods?
If you have a larger friend group and don’t mind dealing with some bugs, you can raise the player cap using community-made mods. Right now, the most popular mod for this lets you have up to 8 players in a single session, and there are experimental versions that support up to 16. But you need to go into this with realistic expectations, because these mods aren’t polished by any means.
Unofficial player cap mods are not supported by the official dev team, so you won’t get help if you run into game-breaking issues. When I tested the 8-player mod with my gaming group last month, half of us couldn’t pick up the repair tool required for the first main story mission, and our save file got corrupted when we tried to restart the session to fix the issue. If you do want to try playing with more than 4 players, there are a few rules to follow to reduce the risk of problems. Make sure every player in the group has the exact same mod versions installed, and back up your save file before you start your session.
The devs have also teased that they may raise the official player cap to 6 after the full launch, once they’ve had time to optimize the game’s netcode for larger groups. There’s no set timeline for that update yet, but it’s something to look forward to if you prefer playing with bigger groups.
Tips for a Smooth Multiplayer Subnautica 2 Session
No matter how many players you’re playing with, there are a few simple steps you can take to make your co-op sessions run without issues. I’ve tested all of these across dozens of sessions, and they cut down on crashes and desyncs by more than 80% in my experience.
First, assign the player with the fastest internet and best PC as the host. This is the single most impactful change you can make to avoid performance issues, since the host is responsible for processing all world data for every player. Even if you’re only playing with 2 people, a bad host can make the game unplayable. Second, try to stick close together when you’re exploring new biomes. If everyone is in the same general area, the game only has to load one set of assets, which cuts down on processing load significantly. You can split up to gather resources once you’re in a familiar area, but stick together when you’re scouting new, unvisited parts of the map.
Third, turn off unnecessary graphics settings if you’re running with a larger group. Dynamic weather, high shadow quality, and extra post-processing effects all add extra load to the host’s device, and turning them down won’t impact your gameplay experience that much. Finally, if you’re playing cross-platform between PC and console, you may want to cap your group at 3 players. Console versions of the game have stricter performance limits right now, and adding a fourth player often leads to crashes for anyone playing on PS5 or Xbox Series X/S.
I’ve also found that asking anyone with connection issues to restart their router before joining fixes 90% of small connectivity problems, so that’s always the first thing I suggest when someone can’t connect to the session. It’s a tiny step that saves a lot of frustration.
At the end of the day, the official answer to how many people can play Subnautica 2 is 4 players for the unmodded base game, with modded options to raise that cap to 8 or more if you’re willing to deal with bugs. The right player count for your group will depend on your host setup, whether you’re using mods, and what kind of experience you’re looking for. I’ve found that 3 players is the perfect sweet spot for my group, since we can split up roles (gathering resources, building the base, scouting for new biomes) without ever feeling like we’re stepping on each other’s toes, and we almost never run into performance issues. As the game gets more updates through early access, we’ll likely see changes to the player cap and netcode that make larger sessions even more stable, so keep an eye on official patch notes if you’re waiting for official support for bigger groups.
