Axum Bacterial Culture is a raw material in Subnautica 2 Early Access used to build the Metal Farm at the Habitat Builder. The cultures grow as small spherical clusters trapped inside a fractured cage, sitting in the glowing yellow-green runoff pools of the Karakorum Metal Farms, east of the Alien Ruins and Angel Comb.
What Axum Bacterial Culture does
The culture is a meticulously bred microbe colony tied to Axum technology. Standard fabricators cannot reproduce it, so every sample you build with must be harvested from the world. Only one recipe currently uses it.
| Property | Detail |
|---|---|
| Category | Raw Material |
| Biome | Karakorum Metal Farms |
| Source | Harvested from caged clusters in glowing runoff pools |
| Used in | Metal Farm (Habitat Builder) — 1x Mangalloy Ingot + 1x Axum Bacterial Culture |
| Known spawns | 5 total in Early Access v1.0 |
| Respawn | Does not reliably respawn; treat as finite |
Before you leave the Lifepod
The Karakorum region sits deep and far from spawn, with a Collector Leviathan patrolling the upper layers. Going in unprepared will get you killed or stranded.
- Tadpole submarine with at least Depth Module Mk. 1 for the 400m dive.
- Sonic Resonator to crack the cage safely. The Survival Multitool can destroy the culture outright, and bare-hand grabs have been known to launch the item under the map.
- Optional but useful: a forward base with a Scanner Station, or the Sonic Echo Biomod, either of which pings the cultures’ direction and distance.
Route to the Karakorum Metal Farms
Harvesting the culture without losing it
Each culture sits inside a loose, cracked cage. The cage has to come off before you can pick up the sphere inside.
While you’re in the pools
Do not ascend after harvesting. A second Collector Leviathan patrols at a shallower depth above the Metal Farms and will close on you if you climb out of the cavern. Exit the way you came in, keeping near the seabed until you’re clear of Karakorum.
If you plan to return for repeat farming runs, the same area is also where Troilite spawns, which you’ll need for Mangalloy Ingots — the other half of the Metal Farm recipe.
Crafting the Metal Farm
Once you have a culture, head to a Habitat Builder. The Metal Farm recipe consumes one Axum Bacterial Culture and one Mangalloy Ingot per farm. Because only five cultures currently exist in the world, you can build at most five Metal Farms per save in v1.0.
Some players have reported placing cultures into Metal Farms in hopes of cultivating more, but the in-game description is accurate: standard fabricators cannot reproduce them, and no reliable in-world propagation has been confirmed. Plan your farm placement before you commit a sample.
