Xbox Game Pass adds Subnautica 2 while rolling out a new Gamerscore badge feature.
Xbox is having one of its better weeks in recent memory, and the gaming world is paying attention.
Today, two pieces of news landed at almost the same moment: the most wishlisted game on Steam since September 2025 arrived on Xbox Game Pass on its launch day, and Microsoft announced a feature dedicated players have been requesting for years. Taken together, they reflect the kind of combined energy the platform’s new leadership has been working to build since taking over earlier this year.
Subnautica 2 lands on Game Pass with a major new feature
Subnautica 2 is now available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers as of tody at 11 a.m. EDT, making it the eighth addition to the service in May 2026 and the 80th of the year overall. The survival crafting game from Unknown Worlds Entertainment enters early access on PC and Xbox Series X/S and arrives with something the original never officially included: built-in cooperative play for up to four people.
The original Subnautica became one of the most celebrated survival games ever made after its release, and its 2019 companion title Below Zero extended that reputation with critics and players alike. Together, the two games had sold more than 18.5 million copies as of February 2026. An unofficial co-op mod called Nitrox gave the original some multiplayer functionality, but Subnautica 2 builds that feature in from the start, opening up its underwater worlds to players who never had a way to share the experience with friends before.
The game held the top position on Steam’s wishlist rankings from September 2025 all the way through launch day, giving it a level of pre-release anticipation that very few titles in any given year can match.
Achievement hunters are finally getting their moment
Alongside the Subnautica 2 launch, Xbox began rolling out a new tiered Gamerscore badge system that recognizes players for their lifetime achievement totals. The badges display in the Xbox Guide and on user profiles, scaling from 1,000 Gamerscore all the way up to a 10 million Gamerscore badge reserved for the most committed players anywhere in the world.
Achievements have been a part of the Xbox experience since the Xbox 360 launched in 2005, meaning the lifetime totals of the most dedicated players now reflect more than two decades of progress across Xbox consoles, PC and smartphone gaming. The global race to 10 million is genuinely close: three players are currently within a few hundred thousand points of each other near the 8.5 million mark.
The badges are rolling out to Xbox Insiders first before reaching all users in the near future. Today’s update also brings a new Xbox boot-up logo and sound to consoles, both of which can be set as a gamerpic or dynamic background, along with new library filters that help players identify downloaded games that have since rotated out of Game Pass.
What comes next for the platform
May’s Game Pass additions are not finished. Forza Horizon 6 arrives May 19 as a day-one release, with Premium Edition early access opening May 15 for players who purchase the upgrade. Beastro follows on May 21 and Echo Generation 2 on May 27. A second wave of May additions is expected to be announced around May 18 or 19.
The pace of activity at Xbox reflects the direction set by new head Asha Sharma, who took the role in late February following Phil Spencer’s departure. Sharma has moved with notable speed to deliver features for current consoles, reaffirm commitment to a next-generation machine codenamed Project Helix, and revisit the platform’s approach to pricing and game availability. From Subnautica 2 to Gamerscore badges to Forza all arriving in the same calendar stretch, the pace of that approach is clearly continuing to build.