We’re just days away from returning to the beautiful briny in Subnautica 2, and to celebrate, we’ve been treated to an all-new teaser trailer showing off the sights and sounds we can expect to see when we sink beneath the waves on 14th May.

Revealed as part of today’s First Dive Showcase, the new video takes us under the sea to help us “find a convenient way to die”. So that’s nice.

We also get a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it peek at the tools, crafting, and weapons that will be at our disposal when the game launches into early access later this week. You can check the teaser out below:

After being “welcomed back”, we’re reminded that we have to find a way to survive, and urged to avoid listening to the voices in our head or the mysterious pull of “the tree”. Make of that what you will.

“Forget your debt. Forget NoA. Forget Alterra. Forget the life you imagined. It’s all gone now,” our cheery companion reminds us. “You’re going to die here. And that’s alright. Pick the most interesting thing you can see, and explore. Wouldn’t that set you free? And I know where this mission will end. You’ll join us soon enough.”

“Driven from your home by ongoing conflict, Alterra offers you the chance at a new life,” the blurb teases. “But as the colony ship CICADA shepherds you and your fellow Pioneers to your new home, something goes awry.

“The ship’s AI insists that your mission should continue. Stranded and faced with near-insurmountable odds, you must do everything in your power to survive. The future of humanity on this world is in your hands.”

If that two-minute teaser wasn’t enough for you, Unknown Worlds’ two-hour-long Subnautica 2 Deep Dive is ready when you are. It’s here that the community team revealed that all players who buy Subnautica 2 in its first week will receive a buildable in-game Reaper statue for your base.

Of everything revealed today, however, what was most exciting for me was to hear the dev team confirm that the prequel’s unsettling tension remains.

“I think the dark gets real dark and, you know, it’s real scary and… I work on the game,” said game design lead, Anthony Gallegos. “I’m a little bit broken. Most things don’t affect me. But there are still things that I play right now where it gets really dark and I’m like… Nah. This is really quite a challenge to playtest.”

Despite publisher Krafton’s publicly-stated “AI-first company” ambitions, Subnautica 2 creative media producer Scott MacDonald and design lead Anthony Gallegos recently confirmed to Eurogamer that no generative AI has been used to create any aspect of Subnautica 2.