Subnautica 2 dev says people like survival games so much because they speak to our "little monkey brains" and "we're all little monkeys"

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How do you do, fellow monkeys?

A woman in a underwater machine waving during the cinematic teaser for Subnautica 2.
(Image credit: Unknown Worlds)

Guess what: I'm a little monkey. And you? Ha, I bet you thought this day would never come, but you've been revealed as a little monkey, too. The truth is, every single person you've ever met is a silly baby monkey – picking their nose, eating an overripe banana, playing Subnautica 2…

At least, they are in the mad, monkey world according to Subnautica 2 designer Anthony Gallegos, who tells Edge for its magazine issue 414 that – as you may have guessed by now – "we're all little monkeys," and this fact of existence might be what draws us to survival games.

"Everyone's little monkey brains like shelter and food," Gallegos explains. I imagine underwater survival game Subnautica 2 – now set to release in Early Access 2026 after the series' creators were suddenly ousted last month – will have plenty of both to offer, though the primate inside you might not be interested now that fans have called for a boycott of the game.

Ashley Bardhan
Ashley Bardhan
Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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