Subnautica will take you to diverse environments: From lava, to ice, to coral, and more. In these environments, you will encounter all sorts of creatures, big and small. The above image is Cave Thing, and is a piece of Subnautica concept art that tries to give form to several gameplay ideas.

Cave Thing is painted with a diver’s mask at the edges, hinting at Subnautica’s first person nature. On the right, a small vehicle of some kind if shining lights on to the evidently bemused creature. Small vehicles will be pilotable (or this one an un-manned drone, supporting the swimming player?), deploying from ‘mothership’ style larger vessels (See Exterior Sketch for more about this!).

Most importantly, this little encounter is taking place in a cave. Steve has been working hard on procedural terrain generation techniques that result in cave formations. Caves are also likely to be a regular feature of artist-created pre-fabricated areas, some of which might feature a create like the Cave Thing…

Each week in December and January, we will release a new piece of concept art, and discuss that piece’s implication for Subnautica gameplay. You can chat to Charlie about gameplay, Steve about tech, and Cory about art on Twitter any time! See more concept art here.