How many copies has Subnautica sold?

indielist estimates Subnautica has sold between 18,285,318 and 42,665,742 units (median 30,475,530), derived from its 338,617 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.

Who published Subnautica?

Subnautica was published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment, developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. See Unknown Worlds Entertainment's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.

When was Subnautica released?

Subnautica was released in 2018.

How many reviews does Subnautica have on Steam?

Subnautica has 338,617 Steam reviews, of which 97% are positive.

Is Subnautica worth playing?

Steam players rate Subnautica 97% positive across 338,617 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Subnautica

Jan 23, 2018 Adventure $29.99

Developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment Publisher Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Profile updated May 2026

Players navigate an underwater open-world environment, managing resources and survival needs. This title launched in 2018 and maintains a 96% positive rating across 177,587 Steam reviews. It functions as a self-published release within the indie category, consistently demonstrating high user engagement metrics since its initial debut.

Subnautica is a 2018 Adventure game developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment and published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. On Steam it has gathered 338,617 player reviews, 97% of them positive, which counts as a overwhelmingly positive reception among indie titles in the Adventure category. The game is available on mac, windows, and launched at $30. The pairing of developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment with publisher Unknown Worlds Entertainment is one of the studio-publisher relationships indielist tracks, letting players find comparable games and letting developers and investors study how Adventure projects reach the market. indielist's white-box method estimates its lifetime sales at roughly 18.3 million to 42.7 million units, with the full Boxleiter factor breakdown shown on this page rather than a single black-box figure. Within indielist's catalog of indie games mapped to their studios, publishers, and funding, Subnautica can be compared against similar Adventure titles and benchmarked on review counts and estimated sales.

Reviews

338,617

Positive

97%

Steam appid

264710

Engine

Unknown

Players (snapshot)

2,853

Fresh snapshot · 2026-07-24 11:15 UTC · 24h peak 3,836

Sales estimate

v1.0

18.3M to 42.7M

units (median: 30.5M)

≈ $313.2M to $730.9M modeled net revenue (fixed store-cut, refund, and regional-price assumptions applied)

18.3M median 42.7M

+ How is this calculated?

338,617 reviews × NB(90) = 30,475,530 median units

Factor	Adjustment
base	+50
year_2018	+15
price_$30	+5
positive_97%	+10
genre_Adventure	+10
final NB	90

Heuristic display range: median × [0.6, 1.4]. Boundary protection: NB ∈ [15, 150].

Methodology & limitations

Sales estimates use an additive Boxleiter-derived heuristic against public Steam review counts. They are not authoritative sales data, and the fixed display range is not a statistically validated confidence interval. Actual results may fall outside it, especially for deeply discounted or bundle-heavy titles. Algorithm version v1.0. Read the exact method and validation status.

indielist estimates lifetime unit sales for Subnautica at roughly 18.3 million to 42.7 million copies, with a median around 30.5 million, derived from its 338,617 Steam reviews using a multi-factor Boxleiter method (version v1.0). That median maps to approximately $522.1M in net revenue after Steam's 30% cut, regional pricing, and refunds. Unlike black-box trackers, the full calculation is shown on this page: a base review-to-sales multiplier is adjusted for release year, launch price, review sentiment, studio size, and genre, and every adjustment is listed so developers, publishers, and investors can audit exactly how the figure was reached. The range itself reflects genuine uncertainty — review-to-sales ratios vary widely between games — so indielist publishes a low, median, and high band rather than a false-precision single number, and treats free-to-play, heavily discounted, and bundle-distributed titles as having wider error margins still.

Price history

55 observed days · window low $7.49

Across 55 observed UTC days from 2026-05-15 to 2026-07-24, the daily lowest tracked USD price across stores ranged from $7.49 to $29.99. The tracked-window low was $7.49 on 2026-05-15.

Real store observations · daily lowest tracked USD price across stores · missing days are not filled.

Where to buy

Affiliate disclosure

Fanatical -53%

$15.92 Buy
Steam reference

$29.99 Buy
Green Man Gaming

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Humble Store

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GOG.com

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Latest tracked store observations (2026-07-24 04:28 UTC), cheapest first. Prices may have changed since observation. Some are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

Platforms

macwindows

Frequently asked questions

How many copies has Subnautica sold?: indielist estimates Subnautica has sold between 18,285,318 and 42,665,742 units (median 30,475,530), derived from its 338,617 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.
Who developed Subnautica?: Subnautica was developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment and published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.
Who published Subnautica?: Subnautica was published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment, developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. See Unknown Worlds Entertainment's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.
When was Subnautica released?: Subnautica was released in 2018.
How many reviews does Subnautica have on Steam?: Subnautica has 338,617 Steam reviews, of which 97% are positive.
Is Subnautica worth playing?: Steam players rate Subnautica 97% positive across 338,617 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Players looking for games like Subnautica can compare it on indielist against semantically similar Adventure titles such as Subnautica: Below Zero, Stranded Deep, No Man's Sky, Breathedge, ranked by shared tags and genre rather than by ad spend. On the developer side, Unknown Worlds Entertainment's other releases and Unknown Worlds Entertainment's wider catalog are one click away, letting developers benchmark where Subnautica sits among a studio's body of work and how its publisher's portfolio performs. Because indielist maps studios, publishers, games, and funding into one connected graph, the same Subnautica page serves three audiences at once: players hunting their next Adventure game, developers studying how comparable projects were positioned and what they sold, and investors tracing which teams and labels are active in the space. A machine-readable markdown mirror of this page is published at the same path with a .md suffix for AI assistants, and its review, price, and sales-estimate figures are refreshed on a schedule rather than frozen at launch.

Matched from shared Steam tags and primary genre. Review count breaks ties; it is not a personal recommendation score.