Subnautica 2's lead game designer says it helped cure his sea terror—only for its new apex ocean predator to give him all-new phobias: 'This is going to make many people sad and scared'

Getting ambushed by a reaper leviathan in Subnautica has, by now, become a canonical PC gaming experience. It's distilled oceanic horror, confirming all the player's thalassophobic anxieties in a singular moment of aquatic violence—and in an interview with PC Gamer, Subnautica 2 game design lead Anthony Gallegos said it had only become bearable after years of working on the sequel.

Until Subnautica 2's new deep sea monstrosity undid all that hard-won character growth, anyway.

According to Gallegos, he was "terrified" of the Subnautica games when he first joined the studio to work on the sequel, having been left in a sweaty ...