A new Subnautica Early Access update has been released on Steam! This is the Crash Site update. It brings access to the crashed Aurora starship, big performance and stability improvements, fully-playable Oculus VR support, the new Radiation Suit, terrifying Reaper creatures, and much, much more.

Since the beginning of Subnautica development, the Aurora starship has hung on the horizon. She has attracted players to her stricken hull like moths to a flame. Until now, it was not possible to approach the Aurora: Strong radiation fields meant death to anyone that approached. Now, that has all changed.

A new Radiation Suit is available to be crafted at the Fabricator. When worn, it protects against the effects of radiation. With it, you can now approach the Aurora.

Equipping the Radiation Suit is a breeze thanks to the new Paper Doll inventory interface. To wear a particular diving suit, helmet, or other piece of equipment, simply drag it onto the ‘doll.’

The Aurora will now explode a few in-game days after game start. It is possible to play Crash Site with an old save game – The Aurora will still explode. However, the saved game will need to be upgraded to include all the new terrain around the ship, and any gear, submarines, or bases stored within 150m of the Aurora will be lost. For more information about this, see the upgrade dialog presented in the main menu.

At the crash site, you might find all sorts of goodies. You may also find new threats – So tread carefully.

The radiation spread from the wreck of the Aurora restricts movement over wide swaths of the sea floor. Explore the damaged dark-matter core on board to see if you can find a way to reverse the radiation spread.

There’s good news for those playing Subnautica with Oculus Rift development kits. Big progress has been made on interface elements and graphics, and it is now possible to get around Subnautica’s various menus using the Rift. For example, the PDA now works properly.

Subnautica now runs on the latest and greatest version of the Unity engine, Unity 5. Unity 5 is faster than 4 in a few ways, and we’ve also made some tweaks to the way the game is rendered. This means Subnautica generally runs faster than it used too.

In addition to performance improvements, massive memory optimization work and a switch to 64-bit memory architecture means many crashes have been banished below the sea-bed. If your machine meets minimum requirements, it is now very unlikely you will experience a memory related crash. To help work out if your computer is powerful enough to play Subnautica, we’ve added a minimum – specification warning to the main menu.

Behind the scenes, there’s been big progress on a community language translation system. It’s not quite ready for prime time, but we will be talking about it soon. If you would like to see Subnautica in a particular language, you will soon have the opportunity to make it happen.

The past five weeks have been intense. Crash Site is the biggest Subnautica update we’ve yet undertaken. It is not perfect – You will find many, many bugs, but it is our intention to bring you the latest stuff as soon as possible. Please send us your feedback, both positive and negative. We very much appreciate hearing from you, and your input helps us make Subnautica a better game.

This blog post only scratches the surface of what has been changed in Subnautica inside the Crash Site update. From new animation systems, to entirely new cave complexes, to innumerable squashed bugs – Find out about everything that went into Crash Site by visiting the Subnautica Trello board, and perusing the Checkin and Changes list.