(Image credit: Unknown Worlds)

Getting ambushed by a reaper leviathan in Subnautica has, by now, become a canonical PC gaming experience. It's distilled oceanic horror, confirming all the player's thalassophobic anxieties in a singular moment of aquatic violence—and in an interview with PC Gamer, Subnautica 2 game design lead Anthony Gallegos said it had only become bearable after years of working on the sequel.

Until Subnautica 2's new deep sea monstrosity undid all that hard-won character growth, anyway.

(Image credit: Unknown Worlds)

According to Gallegos, he was "terrified" of the Subnautica games when he first joined the studio to work on the sequel, having been left in a sweaty submarine panic by its earlier entries.

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"I played through them right before I joined the studio, and I had a really difficult time with it," he said.

Luckily, throughout the course of Subnautica 2's development, Gallegos said he was "broken" by the collective exposure therapy of a 9-5 spent…