Outbound Launching Earlier on PC and Xbox to Avoid Subnautica 2

· Vice

The imminent early access release of Subnautica 2 seems to have caused a shift in release strategy for Outbound, an upcoming indie survival game.

Visit orlando-books.blog for more information.

Outbound release changed to May 11 on Xbox and PC

screenshot: square glade games

One of the more highly anticipated 2026 indie games, Outbound is an open world survival game that uses a cozy camper van as a canvas for players to turn into the ultimate road home. Those who’ve seen trailers for Outbound know just how wild players’ customization of this camper van can get, with porches, small greenhouses, solar panels, and more showing up atop the van in the looks developer Square Glade Games have provided of the title.

Outbound won’t be the only new survival game on the block next month, as the full-blown sequel to 2018’s hit aquatic exploration game Subnautica has just recently stamped its May 14 early access release date. The game is initially only launching on Xbox and PC and will cost $30 as updates are planned to roll out over its expected two-to-three-year early access journey.

PlayStation and Switch release remains the same

In an X post reacting to the Subnautica 2 early access release news, Outbound cheekily announced that it’s shifting its release on PC and Xbox up by three days, stamping a new May 11 date. This will help give it a bit of room to breathe before Subnautica 2 comes out. In a later post, Square Glade’s Tobi Schnackenberg confirmed that gamers on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, however, will have to wait until May 14 to jump into Outbound, as the release date on those platforms is unchanged seeing that competitor Subnautica 2 is currently only coming to Xbox and PC.

Usually, only AAA behemoths like Grand Theft Auto can cause other studios and publishers to shift release dates; indie games typically don’t shift dates around other indie games. However, Hollow Knight: Silksong was big enough to make waves in the indie game world last September when it caused more than a handful of games to adjust their already established release dates, something that had seldom been seen in the indie space before, at least to that degree. Titles like Demonschool, Baby Steps, and Clover Pit were among the games that moved out of the way of the mythical and comically long-awaited Silksong release.

screenshot: Square glade games

While Outbound moving its release up on two platforms to avoid Subnautica 2 isn’t quite as big a deal as Silksong inspiring eight games to rethink their release dates, it’s still interesting to see the Subnautica sequel have a similar impact, albeit much smaller. Most of the games that moved away from Silksong‘s date had very little in common with the 2D metroidvania platformer; the Hollow Knight name was simply too big to directly compete with. Outbound and Subnautica 2, on the other hand, are both competing within a similar genre.

The mythical “unicorn” indies like Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades 2 have already been released, and there aren’t as many indies coming up that have that same level of release calendar dominance. That said, it’ll be interesting to see if more smaller cases of release date shifting, such as Outbound‘s, occur in the indie scene.

Outbound is coming to Xbox and PC on May 11, and PlayStation and Nintendo Switch on May 14.

The post Outbound Launching Earlier on PC and Xbox to Avoid Subnautica 2 appeared first on VICE.

Read full story at source