Earlier this month, Unknown Worlds’ guardian firm Krafton reportedly pressured out the studio’s co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, in addition to former CEO Ted Gill, earlier than pushing Subnautica 2 to 2026. The following confrontation between the previous management workforce and Krafton led to a lawsuit. Now, Cleveland has shared the complete particulars of the lawsuit which alleges a multi-year push by Krafton to disclaim Unknown Worlds a promised $250 million payout.
The lawsuit has been posted online, and it accuses Krafton of actively making an attempt to sabotage the early-access launch of Subnautica 2 by refusing to carry out pre-launch actions it had beforehand agreed to do. It additionally notes that Unknown Worlds had a clause within the 2021 buyout that prevented Krafton from firing its management workforce with out trigger.
Bloomberg was the primary to report that Krafton was presupposed to pay $250 million to Unknown Worlds if the corporate reached sure monetary targets in 2025. The lawsuit means that Krafton’s choice to fireplace Unknown Worlds’ management workforce was solely made to stop Subnautica 2 from being launched in any kind in 2025, which might make it virtually unattainable for the monetary targets to set off the $250 million payout. The lawsuit goes on to demand that Krafton be pressured to pay the beforehand agreed upon quantity and to return artistic management of Subnautica 2 to the previous leaders of Unknown Worlds.
Krafton has beforehand launched a press release accusing Cleveland and the opposite former leaders of abandoning their duties for Subnautica 2. Earlier this week, a leaked doc about Subnautica 2’s growth appeared to help Krafton’s assertion that it did not attain the thresholds wanted for an early-access launch, however it might take years of courtroom battles earlier than a winner emerges on this case.
Subnautica 2 is anticipated to be launched on PC and Xbox Sequence X|S in 2026.