Unknown Worlds' first commercial game was a sequel to its lovely mod Natural Selection, but its second shall be quite different indeed. The developer is diving deep with Subnautica, which it describes as an "open world underwater exploration and construction game" about exploring the exciting and terrible unknown, meeting what lives down there.

While talk of open-world exploration and construction immediately brings Minecraft to mind, Subnautica seems to be taking quite a different tack.

"Subnautica aims to elicit a feeling of experiencing the unknown: A sense that you are exploring an untouched world, not knowing how far, or how deep you can go," Unknown Worlds said in the weekend's announcement. "The underwater environment will invite you to construct submarines and develop your equipment in order to reach its far flung and diverse corners. Decisions you make about vessel layout, capabilities and structure will affect your ability to navigate hazards and enter the domains of creatures; the likes of which your imagination has never conceived of."

Though we haven't seen the game in motion yet, Unknown Worlds plans to share it with people quite soon, saying it'll share builds with "a wider and wider audience over the coming months."

The developer also reassured that making Subnautica "will have no effect on" work planned for Natural Selection 2. Its current NS2 slate includes a remake of the lovely classic map Eclipse.

Here's a video introducing Subnautica and Unknown Worlds' plans for revealing more: