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It went from one of 2025’s most anticipated releases to one of the most dramatic public feuds in modern video game history. The announcement that the Early Access launch of Subnautica 2 was being delayed until 2026 was newsworthy enough, but it was revealed that the leadership team of the Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds was being removed as part of the delay. Now, that leadership team is claiming in a new lawsuit that the whole thing is a desperate move by their parent company to avoid paying a $250 million payout to the developers.

Here is the timeline of events as we know them. Subnautica launched in 2018 and became one of the most popular survival games in history, selling more than 5 million copies and spawning a spin-off in 2021. Obviously, a direct sequel, Subnautica 2, was soon in development at the US-based Unknown Worlds. In October 2021, South Korean publisher Krafton purchased Unknown Worlds. What followed was an underperforming miniature game and a push toward Subnautica 2. That’s where things fell apart between the two companies.

In July 2025, Subnautica 2 was delayed until 2026 and Unknown Worlds co-founders Charlie Cleveland, Max McGuire, and Ted Gill were all out of the company. Krafton claimed this was because they had not dedicated their efforts toward delivering Subnautica 2. In a post on their homepage, Krafton said that they purchased Unknown Worlds for an initial price of $500 million, with an additional $250 million earn-out compensation expected to go to the developers, 90% of which would go to the executive team of Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill. However, targets were not met and the game was not ready for a 2025 Early Access release, forcing Krafton to make a leadership change at the company.

Now, Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill are taking aim at Krafton, saying that they delayed the game to 2026 to avoid paying the $250 million bonus to the company, which was tied to earnings reported in 2025. Earnings that would have been met if Krafton hadn’t pushed them out of the company and delayed the game to the following year. Their lawsuit, which was shared by Aftermath, says that Krafton committed “flagrant contractual breaches” in its efforts to avoid paying that bonus and says that Subnautica 2 is ready for Early Access this year as planned. It claims the publisher is “desperate” to avoid paying such a massive payout to the developer.

In a report from Bloomberg, Krafton claims it is extending the earnings period for that $250 million bonus, which would go to the remaining staff at Unknown Worlds, which seems to undercut the previous executive team’s claims. We won’t know, however, how this will all shake out until the lawsuit is unsealed completely. For now, the gaming industry is watching all the drama around Subnautica 2 as closely as they would the game’s eventual launch.

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