The people behind the Natural Selection games are due to move onto their next game, Subnautica. This would usually be a bit of a problem, as there’s still a sizeable community of players for NS2 right now and having the game’s developers working on their new game would mean infrequent updates to the older game. However, Unknown Worlds have come up with a solution.

Thanking the community for their dedication, passion and for keeping the game alive years after release, it was announced today that development of NS2 would carry on through their efforts. “We are happy to announce that Unknown Worlds Entertainment has approved a team of experienced and passionate community members to help carry on the development of NS2 into a potential patch 266 (and hopefully, beyond!).” Which essentially means that the IP has been put in the hands of the players.

The new team has been called “Squad 5” and will be a small team led by two community members called Wasabi and Obraxis. They won’t be paid for their efforts to keep the game alive, but anyone in the community who contributes in a notible way, be it through a bugfix or adding something the game that enhances the core gameplay will get a special Squad 5 badge on their profile to show their involvement. The team is also promising to be transparent with the updates, promising to be seen around talking about changes on podcasts and streams as well as being involved in-game too.

Placing a game’s IP into the hands of the community is a fairly bold move, but it could easily turn out to be a good one as far as updates for the game go. Provided the community can keep itself working together, NS2 could yet have many more years in it.