Axum Bacterial Culture location in Subnautica 2

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.

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

Step 1: Leave the Lifepod and travel east. The Metal Farms cavern sits roughly 2,000 meters east, with a bearing close to 75° northeast from the Alien Ruins Research Base. Stay low to avoid the Collector Leviathan that prowls between the Graveyard and Observatory biomes.

Step 2: Descend to around 400 meters depth. Use the second Angel Comb, the large blue structure near the Karakorum Power Plant, as your landmark. It sits about 1,750m east of the Lifepod.

Step 3: From the Angel Comb, follow the glowing purple Titan Rockbore root on the seabed heading roughly 30° east-northeast. Ignore branches that veer off; stay on the main path until you see the green-yellow glow of the runoff pools ahead.

Step 4: Drop into the central pool. PC Gamer pinpoints the densest cluster about 870 meters from the Alien Ruins Research Base, in the main glowing green pool inside the Metal Farms cavern.

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.

Step 1: Approach the cage in the pool. Stay slow — the cultures can clip through the terrain if you bump them aggressively.

Step 2: Fire the Sonic Resonator at the cage. This is the recommended method because it shatters the shell cleanly without risking destruction of the culture itself. A Flashlight or Scanner ping can also break the shell if a Resonator is not available.

Step 3: Grab the glowing purple sphere that floats free of the broken cage. It enters your inventory as Axum Bacterial Culture.

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.