The Cyclops is Coming
Until now, the only way to brave Subnautica’s ocean depths has been in a divesuit, a Seaglide personal-water-craft, or a Seamoth submersible. None of those are very big. Soon, that will all change. The Cyclops submarine is a massive underwater machine: It is capable of diving to great depths, providing on-board supply replenishment, construction, and repair, and the launch and retrieval of smaller vehicles like the Seamoth.
To get an idea of the scale of the Cyclops, look at the screenshot above. The Seamoth submersible, itself much bigger than a diver, is visible about 30 metres in front of the Cyclops. At the heart of the submarine is the propulsion unit, housed on the upper deck towards the stern. Here is a screenshot taken from a work-in-progress model a few weeks ago:
At the moment, we are planning on having the Cyclops available in game in an update within two weeks. When ready, the Cyclops will be available for creation at the Constructor. It will require significant resources to build one. Here’s a concept piece for the construction process:
The ample on-board space means there is plenty of room for the storage of equipment, supplies, and installing new machinery to enhance the Cyclops’ capabilities. In the concept piece below, you can see a compartment on the upper deck, with the space marked out for an upgrade allowing the launch and retrieval of a Seamoth submersible:
Of course, we can’t be sure that the Cyclops will be ready within two weeks. It’s a huge and complex task. Outside the deeper technical systems underlying the game, like the voxel terrain engine, the Cyclops is probably the most complex discrete gameplay element we’ve yet tackled. To give you an idea of the scale of the work, here is a task tree that shows many of the things we need to do:
Follow the development of the Cyclops submarine on the Subnautica Trello board, and subscribe to the development mailing list to be notified when it is released. We can’t wait to bring it to you!