Subnautica 2 is looking good on Desktop Linux, it's okay on Steam Deck with caveats

What was the most wishlisted game on Steam, Subnautica 2 has entered Early Access and so far it's running out of the box on Linux / SteamOS. Note: this was a personal purchase.

On Desktop Linux (Fedora KDE 44) using the latest Proton 11 Beta, I've had no problems getting into the game which is great to see for such a big new release. Running without any issues on my all AMD system - Ryzen 5800x / Radeon 6800 XT (Mesa drivers 26.0.6). With a 2560x1440 resolution, graphics on the High preset and TSR set to Quality it has been very smooth sitting just above 60FPS almost the entire time. For an initial unfinished release, I'm really impressed at the quality level of this one.

Pictured below on Desktop Linux:

It has been incredibly stable too, not a single crash in my current time with it on Desktop Linux.

On the Steam Deck OLED it does have a Verified rating from Valve and the developers did previously say how it was good to go on Steam Deck for the launch. I've been testing with SteamOS 3.8 Beta since that should be released to stable sometime quite soon, which has the latest updated graphics drivers.

Here, it's a bit of a mixed bag - because a bunch of times it doesn't even launch and it seems I'm not alone (and more and so on) in that issue. It gets stuck on this screen a fair bit:

Part of the problem is when you force quit because it's frozen on the screen above or a completely black screen, the next run will load the splash screen logo image and then give an error window about how it didn't launch correctly like the one below:

This error screen seems to get in the way of the game actually loading, as you cannot press the Ok button for it to then continue. You go to press it and vanishes behind another splash screen logo image in a separate window to the game. However, I discovered if you use the Properties -> Developer -> Delete Proton Files option it will then load correctly next time:

So if you also have that issue, try that as it fixed it every time it happened for me. So that's the first major caveat out of the way.

As for Steam Deck performance and visual quality it defaults to everything on Low with TSR set to Performance with a 30FPS target. It tends to hover between 28-32FPS but the visuals really aren't the best. Bumping TSR up to Quality still seemed to keep about 30FPS so that's somewhat promising with visuals that are just a little bit clearer overall. Not amazing but smooth enough to be playable and enjoyable. The extra caveat here being that this performance level might not hold up in the later game and with other players joining you when the game is having to load more.

Battery life seems reasonable at about 2 hours.

Pictures below on the Steam Deck OLED with the Low preset and TSR set to Quality.

The developers also just announced today that it has already crossed over 2 million sales within 12 hours of launch. It also hit a peak player count of 467,582 on Steam - impressive! In a press release they noted that all platforms combined (Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox) 651,000 so it shows just how big the gap is between Steam and other platforms too and they said it's "approximately nine times the all-time peak concurrent player count of the original Subnautica, which launched in 2018".

I've been thoroughly enjoying my time exploring the ocean in this one. Seeing all the different types of fish, scavenging for resources and collecting voice logs and more. And, if I wasn't already afraid of the open ocean, I certainly would be now. I've been hunted repeatedly. The game gets seriously spooky at times, especially when it gets dark. But overall, it's quite a nice chilled game. Apart from all the drowning though, I've lost count of the amount of times I've raced to the surface but drowned on the way.

We're a long way off the game being finished, so I'll be keen to see how performance improves over time and how the game expands with new content. For now, it seems rather good for what's there.

YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link