According to devs, yes, but I’m believing it less and less based on their own marketing.
Every single trailer and most gameplay videos have put the multiplayer front and center. We’ve already seen gameplay features (like skitching on the tadpole) exclusive to multiplayer, and there are likely more coming. Even what we know of the story so far seems geared to multiplayer: Alterra AI insists that the player complete their mission **to establish a colony** after crashing, which sounds much less plausible if you’re the sole survivor.
If I knew nothing about this franchise beyond the trailers, I would assume you need friends to play it.
Subnautica is my favorite game of all-time… mostly due to the terror and sense of isolation inherent to the plot/setting. I can’t imagine a more pure survival story than crash-landing alone on an alien world covered in hostile ocean, with no rescue coming. It was a big reason Below Zero didn’t hit as hard for me; not only did Robin’s voice and her disembodied companion make me feel less alone, but she chose to be there.
Please, someone assuage my fears and show me some evidence that this is still primarily a single-player experience. I am but an old man of thirty-and-five years, frightened and confused by Discord, who hangs out with real people in real life and plays video games to escape from them.