As far as undersea adventures go, Subnautica is a game featuring some of the most terrifying, exhilarating, and satisfying gameplay in the modern era. Players start the game after their spaceship crashes onto a planet mostly covered in oceans, however, they are far from alone.

The seas are full of colossal and deadly leviathans, tons of smaller species of aquatic aliens, and strange vegetation; much of which one can use to build and upgrade devices and vehicles to explore farther and, more importantly, deeper. However, during one’s seafaring voyages in Subnautica, there may be unexpected glitches that occur that can be anywhere from inconvenient to straight-up game-breaking. Thankfully, those playing on PC and certain other platforms have access to console commands that can rectify issues caused by the most intrusive bugs.

After doing so, players will need to navigate the newly-appeared console part of the menu. Here, they can activate the desired console command on whatever platform they are enjoying Subnautica on to get themselves out of tight spots or to remedy hindering bugs and glitches.

How To Use Console Commands

By default, console commands will be disabled, as they prevent one from gaining achievements, therefore players will have to follow a few steps before being able to access these helpful debugging tools. Firstly, hit the F3 key to pop up a menu where one should see a box with a checkmark on it labeled “Disable Console”. Press the F8 key to get one’s mouse cursor to appear and then click the box to uncheck it.

After enabling the console, press Enter and one will now be able to input the desired commands into the console. The next time one opens up the game after shutting down, they will need to hit F3 and Enter again to access console commands once more. While there are a ton of commands to use, it is recommended to become familiar with the basic ones first in order to see how things work at very little risk.

The Basic Console Commands & What They Do

  • [NAME] - Displays the Spawn ID of anything in the game which needs to be used in conjunction with other commands in order to do anything [#] - Represents the value of any given factor - East and west coordinates [y] - Altitude coordinate [z] - North and south coordinates

How To Use Event Console Commands

Throughout the game, there will be various events tied to the player’s actions and the storyline. Most of the time, one can sit back and enjoy these exciting happenings as they break up the swimming, harvesting, and building in awesome ways that can deepen one’s understanding of this game’s vast and complex world. However, if things glitch out, players may need to initiate certain sequences in order to progress events.

All Event Console Commands & What They Do

  • countdownship - Starts the countdown for the drive core explosion event of the Aurora explodeship - Causes the drive core explosion event of the Aurora restoreship - Reverts the Aurora to its pre-destroyed state as well as reactivates the radiation around it startsunbeamstoryevent - Starts the Sunbeam story event sunbeamcountdownstart - Starts the countdown for the Sunbeam story event precursorgunaim - Plays the cutscene where the Quarantine Enforcement Platform shoots down the Sunbeam playsunbeamfx - Plays only the latter part of the cutscene where the Quarantine Enforcement Platform shoots down the Sunbeam infectionreveal - Plays the animation of the player realizing that they are infected with the Kharaa Bacterium (this will advance the player’s infection stage to 4) forcerocketready - Allows the player to launch the Neptune Escape Rocket without needing to disable the Quarantine Enforcement Platform

How To Use General Console Commands

As their classification implies, these commands have a general usage that pertains to specific situations where things just don’t go as planned. This can mean anything from one’s Prawn Suit getting stuck in a wall to resources not dropping items. To get around such awkward circumstances, players should consider restarting the game before doing anything else, however, if that does not work, then one may need to use one of the following commands.

All General Console Commands & What They Do

  • item [NAME] [#] - Adds the desired number of a specific item to the player’s inventory clearinventory - Deletes everything that the player currently has in their inventory spawn [NAME] [#] - Spawns the desired number of a specific object (including creatures) in front of the player cure [#] - Cures the player, as well as all creatures nearby, of the Kharaa Bacterium infect [#] - Infects the player, as well as all creatures nearby, with the Kharaa Bacterium lldetach - Removes all attached lava larva from any targeted vehicle playerinfection [#] - Alters the stage of the Kharaa Bacterium infection level within the player between a range of 1 to 5 (5 will cure the player) sub cyclops - Spawns the Cyclops vehicle in front of the player sub aurora - Spawns the Aurora near to the player sub escapepod - Spawns a Lifepod 5 (a new one, the existing one is not affected) somewhere within the Safe Shallows biome and places the player within it filterwater - Causes the creation of a Large Filtered Water at every Water Filtration Machine on the map filtersalt - Causes the creation of a Salt Deposit at every Water Filtration Machine on the map vehicleupgrades - Grants the player every common-level vehicle module cyclopsupgrades - Grants the player all Cyclops modules seamothupgrades - Grants the player all Seamoth modules exosuitupgrades - Grants the player all Prawn Suit modules exosuitarms - Grants the player all Prawn Suit arms spawnloot - Spawns a small collection of items (1 Quartz, 1 Copper Ore, 1 Silver Ore, 1 Salt Deposit, 1 Gold, and 4 Metal Salvage) tools loot - Spawns a collection of tools (1 Repair Tool, 1 Seaglide, 1 Flare, 1 Transfuser, 1 Propulsion Cannon, and 1 Stasis Rifle) madloot - Spawns a large collection of items and tools (1 Survival Knife, 1 Habitat Builder, 3 Batteries, 4 Computer Chips, 5 Creepvine Samples, 10 Titanium, and 10 Glass) bobthebuilder - Enables many other commands simultaneously (fastbuild, unlock all, nocost, fastgrow, fasthatch, and radiation) as well as adds a few tools to the player’s inventory (1 Habitat Builder, 1 Scanner, 1 Survival Knife, and 1 Repair Tool) resourcesfor [NAME] - Grants the player all of the resources required to craft the specified item ency [NAME] - Unlocks the specified database entry ency all - Unlocks every database entry damage [#]<1/code> - Sets the damage multiplier of the player’s attacks takedamage [#] - Damages the player’s health by the specified amount (value represents a percentage of max health) instagib - Toggles the mode where the player can kill anything in a single attack invisible - Creatures will become non-hostile to the player filterfast - Increases the fabrication speed of Water Filtration Machines fastscan - Increases the speed of scanning when using the Scanner tool fastgrow - Increases the speed at which vegetation in a planter will grow by a huge amount fasthatch - Increases the speed at which creature eggs will hatch while in Alien Containment by a huge amount fastbuild - Increases the speed at which the player constructs objects with the Habitat Builder by a huge amount nocost - Allows the player to use the Fabricator, Habitat Builder, Mobile Vehicle Bay, Vehicle Upgrade Console, and Modification Station without the required resources to craft items nodamage - Makes all creatures invulnerable to damage noenergy - Reduces the energy consumption of vehicles, tools, and bases to nothing nosurvival - Disables the player’s food and water requirements and removes food and water values on consumable items oxygen - Reduces the rate at which the oxygen meter depletes to nothing nitrogen - Reduces the rate at which the oxygen meter depletes radiation - Toggles radiation damage on or off fixleaks - Repairs the Aurora’s radiation leaks flood - Floods the interior of every Cyclops on the map damagesub - Deals damage to every Cyclops on the map destroycyclops - Destroys every Cyclops on the map restorecyclops - Repairs every destroyed Cyclops on the map to a working state vfx cyclopssmokeeffect [#] - Generates the Cyclops’ smoke effects bubbles - Spawns air bubbles around the player’s current location seaglide - Spawns a Seaglide in front of the player unlock [NAME] - Unlocks the specified blueprint unlock all - Unlocks all blueprints unlockdoors - Unlocks all functional doors on the map

How To Use Technical Console Commands

Technical commands pertain to manipulating the natural environment of the world. This includes the game mode, day and night cycle, lighting effects, as well as more.

All Technical Console Commands & What They Do

  • freedom - Changes the game mode to Free mode creative - Changes the game mode to Creative mode survival - Changes the game mode to Survival mode hardcore - Changes the game mode to Hardcore mode day - Sets the time to day night - Sets the time to night daynight [#] - Set the time to the specified value from 0 to 1 (0 is midnight, 0.5 is midday, and 0.15 is dawn) daynightspeed [#] - Sets the speed at which time passes during the night schedule - Shows all of the upcoming events as well as the time until they occur debugstartmap - Displays all possible Lifepod 5 spawn locations cinematics - Toggles animations for the player debugsound - Toggles sound on and off entreset - Reloads all assets on the map gamereset - Resets the game farplane [#] - Changes view distance (default value is 1000) fog - Toggles fog effects on and off fov [#] - Toggles the camera’s zoom distance freecam - allows the player to leave their character’s body and fly around as the camera fps - Shows FPS nobloom - Removes bloom effects noshadows - Removes shadow effects printbiome - Displays which biome the player is currently located resetachievements - Resets all achievements spawnperf [NAME] [#] - Teleports the player near the surface of the water speed [#] - Sets the game speed multiplier target - Toggles target debug on and off schoolfishai - Toggles the AI of schools of small sea creatures on and off vsync - Toggles V-Sync on and off vr - Sets VR options for a specific device (none, stereo, split, Oculus, Morpheus)

How To Use Teleport Console Commands

For players who are physically stuck somewhere, the teleport commands could be of great help. However, they can also be used to find specific locations on the map if one is getting unlucky with biome and wreckage spawns.

All Teleport Console Commands & What They Do

  • biome [NAME] - Teleports the player to a specific biome warp [y] [z] - Teleports the player to specified coordinates warpforward [#] - Teleports the player forward by the desired value (in meters) batch [y] [z] - Teleports the player to specific batch coordinates (different from regular coordinates) warpme - Teleports the player to the last Cyclops or Seabase they entered (including Lifepod 5) goto [NAME] - Teleports player to the specified location spawnnearby - Respawns the player in a nearby location randomstart - Teleports the player to Lifepod 5 and respawns Lifepod 5 at one of the possible starting locations (random) kill - Kills the player and respawns them inside Lifepod 5

How To Activate & Use Console Commands On Consoles

How To Activate Console Commands For Subnautica On Nintendo Switch

In order to activate the console commands on the Switch, Subnautica players will have to pause the game and then press all 4 shoulder buttons at the same time; that is to say to press the R, L, ZL, and ZR buttons all at once. After doing this, the “Developer” tab will pop up in the menu between the “Back to Game” and “Save” options.

How To Activate Console Commands For Subnautica On PlayStation 4

Very similarly to the method mentioned above, players will have to press all of the shoulder buttons on a PS4 controller to cause the Developer tab to appear in the pause screen menu. The shoulder buttons of the PS4 controller are the L1, R1, L2, and R2 buttons respectively.

How To Activate Console Commands For Subnautica On Xbox One

Just like with the previous consoles mentioned, players will have to push all of the shoulder buttons on an Xbox One controller to activate the Developer tab in the pause menu. For reference, these buttons on an Xbox One controller are called the Left Bumper (LB), Right Bumper (RB), Left Trigger (LT), and the Right Trigger (RT) buttons.

How To Use Console Command On Consoles

Unlike in the PC version of the game, players won’t need to type in specific strings of text to activate commands. After opening the Developer tab, there will be 3 sub-tabs: Commands, Give, and Teleport. Within these 3 sub-tabs are all of the console commands that can be activated via simple labeled buttons housed in each respective section.

The Commands tab will allow players to activate most kinds of console commands pertaining to specific actions, the Give tab will allow players to give themselves items of all kinds, and the Teleport tab will help the player relocate themselves as needed.

Subnautica is available on macOS, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.