Developer Unknown Worlds has released its first hotfix for the Early Access release of Subnautica 2, and while it brought in a few fixes for, among other things, crashes for players using AMD graphics cards, the studio has also promised to bring changes to its much-criticized End User License Agreement (EULA). As caught by IGN, the EULA has been described by players as an overreach by the studio and parent company Krafton.
Among the player restrictions defined by the EULA are a ban on using VPNs, an ownership of any mods that might be developed for the survival crafting game, and even a ban on players from bringing “harm” to the “reputation” of Krafton or Subnautica 2.
Players can breathe a sigh of relief thanks to the promise of changes to the game’s Terms of Service, as well as a new FAQ that will address concerns that players have been feeling with the current EULA, in the “near future”. It is worth noting, however, that Unknown Worlds hasn’t quite offered any further details about how its Terms of Service will be changing.
“Adjustments to the Terms of Service and a FAQ addressing concerns with the current version will be rolled out in the near future,” wrote the studio at the bottom of its patch notes.
As for the update itself, it also brings in a fix for crashes that can be caused when using the Ping feature. Interestingly, the game also automatically enables analytics tracking after players have read and agreed to the Terms of Service. However, the analytics tracking can also be turned off at any time from the in-game settings menu.
In the meantime, Unknown Worlds has also been facing some criticism from players over Subnautica 2 not providing players with any way to take on its underwater fauna in combat. Discussing the topic on the game’s official Discord server, one level designer said that players who want to kill things should go play another survival crafting game, like Sons of the Forest, and that Subnautica 2 is not a “killing game”.
“We aren’t a killing game,” wrote the level designer. “Go play Sons of the Forest or something if you want to kill.”
As one might imagine, this response has led to further heated conversations about what defines appropriate feedback over some players just being upset over a game’s design ethos. While some players took to the game’s subreddit to ask “What’s the point of Early Access if you’re just going to not take criticism or feedback,” others have noted that “‘We want your feedback” is not the same thing as ‘we will cave to every request you make’,” they wrote. “If everyone went to the Early Access and was like ‘we want it to be an FPS, but like set the game on Earth in the modern day’, would they be in the wrong to say ‘go play [Call of Duty] instead’?”
Subnautica 2 Early Access Hotfix 1 patch notes:
- Updated the crash-on-startup error pop-up for AMD graphics cards and DirectX 12 issues to provide more guidance and support
- Fixed an infrequent crash related to the Ping feature
- Enabled analytics only after accepting Terms of Service
- Reduced the amount of data being sent to backend services
