Krafton isn’t backing down from its claims that former executives at Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds had “abandoned” the game before their dismissal from the studio.
In an official response to the lawsuit filed against it by the studio’s founders, Krafton said that Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire “abandoned their roles as studio-wide Game Director and Technical Director to focus on their personal passion projects and quit making games for Unknown Worlds entirely.” As far as former CEO Ted Gill, Krafton says that he was “focused on leveraging his operational control to maximize the earnout payment, rather than developing a successful game.”
Krafton’s response continues to allege that in July 2023, staff at Unknown Worlds, specifically Subnautica 2’s development director, had suggested that both Cleveland and McGuire were “checked out” and that they were confused about it. With both studio heads not around, Krafton says that it led to the game’s multiplayer delays from it’s original Q1 2024 release date.
By Spring 2025, the publisher says, the development team received “extensive feedback” from the internal teams which believed that Subnautica 2 wasn’t ready for a release into Early Access. Even Krafton’s CEO reportedly warned the studio heads that a “premature Early Access release of a highly anticipated sequel like Subnautica could cause irreversible harm to the entire IP franchise—pointing to the sequel to Kerbal Space Program as a prime example.”
Despite that, they say, the executives attempted to push forward the Early Access release of the game in order to hit the earnout. That’s even with comments made that at the rate of current development, the game would “be in development for 30 years”.
“Krafton, fearing how an underbaked EA Subnautica 2 would be received by both existing fans and the broader market, urged Cleveland and McGuire to return to their posts to generate a market-ready product that would not disappoint fans,” the document reads. “Cleveland and McGuire declined. In response to Krafton’s request for the Key Employees to return to lead the development of Subnautica 2, Gill stated that ‘[t]here’s no coming back to a job they didn’t have.'”
It was also said that Cleveland and McGuire claimed they would self-publish Subnautica 2 without the support of the publisher, and began secretly downloading “massive amounts of confidential information from Unknown Worlds”.
“The Key Employees’ insistence on releasing the game immediately was singularly driven by self-interest in obtaining the earnout,” Krafton says. “At every turn during development, the Key Employees were laser focused on avoiding ‘a timeline that doesn’t tank the earnout opportunity’ and scheduling the release to maximize their payments.
“Conversations throughout the post-acquisition period make clear the Key Employee’s [sic] focus was on their payday, and not on the game. As early as 2022, an employee who was due to receive a portion of the earnout stated that despite the significant delays in the game, he was confident ‘Ted [Gill] will concoct a scheme to get us that earnout.'”
There’s plenty more in the response, which you can read for yourself via Scribd.
Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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