Multiplat Subnautica 2 controversy. Studio heads fired. EA delayed. 250 million Dollars. Accusations abound

[Bob Gray]

So, I havent seen this story pop up in this forum and its worth discussion.

Recap to get up to date:
Subnuatica = Awesome. Sequel in the works. Dev studio bought by Krafton, a Korean publisher (known for publishing PUBG).

Ok, now that you're up to date.

Subnautica studio leadership gutted by Krafton, which outright says that Subnautica 2 needs 'renewed energy and momentum'

Something stirs beneath the waves.

www.pcgamer.com

*Long story short. News broke that Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland, CEO Ted Gill, and co-founder Max McGuire all left Unknown Worlds for unspecified reasons. Steve Papoutsis of Visceral Games (Callisto Protocol) was brought in as the new lead. The announcement message from Krafton was standard boilerplate. Not enough direction, stalled development, refreshing new energy, meet milestones, best wishes to the devs next project, etc.

*A projected Early Access launch in 2025 would be delayed until 2026. Krafton announces that the game did not meet their expectations for an EA access launch.

Krafton slams ex-Subnautica 2 execs — who now say they’re suing

This is getting ugly.

www.theverge.com

*After this delay was announced, Jason Schreier of Bloomburg reported that the delay of Early Access was against the wishes of the ousted founders, whom accused Krafton of delaying the release to avoid paying a potential 250 million dollar bonus to the studio if they managed to hit certain sales numbers by the end of 2025.

* Krafton fires back and informs that the payout was not to the studio itself, but 90% of the payout would go directly to the 3 ousted developers, not the company as a whole.

*Ousted devs insist that they would have shared the profits among the studio as stated.

*The actual stipulations of triggering the 250 million dollar payout are not known as of this time.

Krafton confirms Subnautica 2 leak showing that the publisher wanted more content for the early access launch, leading to delay and leadership ouster

It's supporting evidence for Krafton's narrative, but still not definitive.

www.pcgamer.com

* Krafton comfirms leaked documents that least support their position that the game had not yet reached their projected milestones for an EA release

Spoiler

Spoiler

*Ousted devs have announced a lawsuit being filed against Krafton.






So, theres a substantial amount of bits and details if you want to deep diving, but I think I broke down the main gist of the situation. My take? I could easily see a big publisher delaying a release to avoid a 250 million dollar payout. However, I am very, VERY skeptical that any sort of 250 million dollar bonus could be hit simply be releasing in Early Access. That is an enormous sum of money. Put it in perspective, Subnautica 2 would have to sell 5 million copies at 50 bucks a pop just to meet 250 million in gross revenue. Subnautica sold about that number overall. Even being generous, I couldnt see a bonus that substanital without at least tripling the payout theyd give (I.E.15 million copies sold), which I think would be an incredibly charitable bonus.

Jason Schrier has been active on twitter with info about the situation if you care to look into it.

For me? Subnautica is one of my all time favorite gaming experiences. Whether or not the sequel could bottle that same lightning is up for debate, but Id just want a good game overall. The background chitter seems to be that the game is currently not in the best state despite ample development time, and the hullabaloo over the ousted senior management and the colossal bonus involved is sure to generate no small amount of controversy. The inital story was the 3 senior devs left, as opposed to being fired and im still not certain about that. But as of now the only ones that have been "caught" being dishonest is the dev themselves, who omitted that 90% of the 250 million dollar bonus would go directly to their pockets, which does come off slightly shady.

But, at the end of the day, just hoping the game is good.

 

[avenue94]

It's a shame since I'm in the same boat as you (one of my favorite games). The response from the ousted studio leads don't exactly deny that the payout would have gone to them first (promises are meaningless sadly).

 

[Bob Gray]

It's a shame since I'm in the same boat as you (one of my favorite games). The response from the ousted studio leads don't exactly deny that the payout would have gone to them first (promises are meaningless sadly).

Subnautica was legit amazing. The Rise of the Ancients mod seems super cool and I hope it gets finished someday. Its pretty disappointing that the state of the sequel seems to be in a rut. Even if its just a Below Zero type of new content I honestly would be OK with it, just because I enjoy the game so much. Id hope for more, but it'd be hard to disappoint me if it met even a standard level of quality.

 

[GtehMVP]

Subnautica was legit amazing. The Rise of the Ancients mod seems super cool and I hope it gets finished someday. Its pretty disappointing that the state of the sequel seems to be in a rut. Even if its just a Below Zero type of new content I honestly would be OK with it, just because I enjoy the game so much. Id hope for more, but it'd be hard to disappoint me if it met even a standard level of quality.

The return of the ancients mod is what will get me to come back. Outside some performance issues, and no map (essential mod) Subnautica was a masterpiece, no hyperbole.

The exploration, gameplay loop/progression are top shelf stuff.

The story/lore and world building is right up there with the best of Souls games, where things unfolded through logs and the environment.

It was terrifying yet super intriguing,

I'm really afraid off the ocean, as I nearly died IRL a couple times swimming in it, so this game tested my limits.

I loved the vehicles we could fabricate too, especially the Cyclops. It wasn't very practical but so damn cool.

They always reminded me of GI Joe vehicles.


They should have stuck with the silent protag for below zero, as the playable character ruined the atmosphere constantly by never shutting up. I could not get into that game, started it multiple times, but wound up looking up the story online.

I hope the sequel is a return to form, but what a shit show atm. It sounds like its ready to go into EA, so Krafton delaying things looks like a means to stiff the OG devs. I hope there's a lawsuit so we can learn everything via discovery. However, the devs are looking shady too.

 

[Bob Gray]

The return of the ancients mod is what will get me to come back. Outside some performance issues, and no map (essential mod) Subnautica was a masterpiece, no hyperbole.

The exploration, gameplay loop/progression are top shelf stuff.

The story/lore and world building is right up there with the best of Souls games, where things unfolded through logs and the environment.

It was terrifying yet super intriguing,

I'm really afraid off the ocean, as I nearly died IRL a couple times swimming in it, so this game tested my limits.

I loved the vehicles we could fabricate too, especially the Cyclops. It wasn't very practical but so damn cool.

They always reminded me of GI Joe vehicles.


They should have stuck with the silent protag for below zero, as the playable character ruined the atmosphere constantly by never shutting up. I could not get into that game, started it multiple times, but wound up looking up the story online.

I hope the sequel is a return to form, but what a shit show atm. It sounds like its ready to go into EA, so Krafton delaying things looks like a means to stiff the OG devs. I hope there's a lawsuit so we can learn everything via discovery. However, the devs are looking shady too.

I wasnt a big fan of the voiced protagonist in BZ either, but I didnt mind the attempt to focus on a more structured narrative. As much as I love the OG, being honest its way too easy to miss important stuff because theres no real direction. I dont mind missing a voiced datapad here and there, but its way too easy to miss important pieces for your projects. Anyone who says the never looked on-line for where to find a specific piece of a schematic is a goddamn liar and I will die on that hill.

The 250 million dollar bonus thing is just shady all around. Like I said above, thats just a massive bonus and I cant see how any company would dish out that kind of scratch without some sort of huge sales numbers. Maybe it was part of the purchase or something. As in, I think they were bought for a 500 million dollar deal, and 250 of that might be dependent on certain metrics.

 

[KaNesDeath]

Been years since i heard Bluehole.

In another thread people are talking about dev leads living off of their past success. Thats Bluehole at the corporate level.

 

[GtehMVP]

I wasnt a big fan of the voiced protagonist in BZ either, but I didnt mind the attempt to focus on a more structured narrative. As much as I love the OG, being honest its way too easy to miss important stuff because theres no real direction. I dont mind missing a voiced datapad here and there, but its way too easy to miss important pieces for your projects. Anyone who says the never looked on-line for where to find a specific piece of a schematic is a goddamn liar and I will die on that hill.

The 250 million dollar bonus thing is just shady all around. Like I said above, thats just a massive bonus and I cant see how any company would dish out that kind of scratch without some sort of huge sales numbers. Maybe it was part of the purchase or something. As in, I think they were bought for a 500 million dollar deal, and 250 of that might be dependent on certain metrics.

I appreciate the narrative effort too, but it wasn't executed well at all. The writing and dialogue were very mid. Did they have different people writing for Below Zero?

If you hear anything about that Return of the Ancients mod being fully, please share it!

 

[Plissken]

Jesus, one of the few games I am looking forward too as well.

The games industry is just as dysfunctional as the movie/tv and music industries despite being so much younger.

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

I don’t really know who to believe. I guess the question is what exactly triggered the departure of the devs. Were they fired or did they quit? Like I don’t understand the power dynamics here. Could not Krafton have simply said to them that the game wasn’t ready for EA and told them to get back to work? I mean the devs can’t just release it into EA on their own, could they, and that Krafton was trying to stop that from happening, hence firing them, right?

 

[Bob Gray]

I don’t really know who to believe. I guess the question is what exactly triggered the departure of the devs. Were they fired or did they quit? Like I don’t understand the power dynamics here. Could not Krafton have simply said to them that the game wasn’t ready for EA and told them to get back to work? I mean the devs can’t just release it into EA on their own, could they, and that Krafton was trying to stop that from happening, hence firing them, right?

The devs have filed a suit now. As I understand it, they were fired. Right now theres a lot of conjecture, a lot of it based in actual evidence like posts from the ousted devs, etc. But theres no smoking gun or anything.

Its really easy to accept that the 3 lead devs weren't much involved with Subnautica 2 development and were doing their own side projects. One of them was developing a Christmas movie using AI, etc. Stuff like that.

As of now, as some far outside looking in through a muddy window, it seems like it really comes down to the state of the current game vs whatever metrics were in place for EA release, and how active the studio heads were. There were posts from other devs in the company saying they were mostly non existent.

Krafton announced an extension for the bonus and that the current devs would receive their portion of the bonus (10% of the 250 million dollar payout).

Some of the stuff coming out seems like Krafton wanted to really get behind the Subnautica IP as a whole, even pushing into TV/movies, etc. Obviously theres some disagreements about rhe details of these conversations. The 3 ousted devs said that Krafton didn't understand what Early Access was. Im a little skeptical that nobody at this billion dollar game publisher understood early access.

Honestly, and I could always be proven wrong, the more that comes out the more it seems like the 3 devs just weren't into Subnautica anymore and had their creative focuses elsewhere, while Krafton was pushing tons of money into an IP they seems to want to expand to a billion dollar franchise.

 

[Dalarna3]

So they were fired in order to avoid paying out a bonus?

 

[Bob Gray]

So they were fired in order to avoid paying out a bonus?

Thats what they say. The publisher says they didnt fulfill the obligations of their contract.

 

[Dalarna3]

Thats what they say. The publisher says they didnt fulfill the obligations of their contract.

The publisher probably realized that the game won’t be as profitable as they thought and is trying to get out of it

 

[offshore33]

The Subnautica legal dispute takes a surprise twist as Unknown Worlds—not Krafton—sues its former bosses for stealing confidential material on their way out the door

This lawsuit adds a new layer, though, by alleging that the "key employees," as they're called, violated their confidentiality agreements by downloading tens of thousands of documents shortly before their termination. Gill allegedly downloaded "a full and complete copy of his Unknown Worlds email account" in early June, triggering an IT alert in the process; he reportedly did it again on June 30, days after he was informed of his imminent termination.
Cleveland reportedly downloaded 72,140 files from his Unknown Worlds Google Drive and company share folders, and "almost certainly was stopped in progress—his last download occurred just eight minutes before the Company shut off his system access," the lawsuit states. It also claims that a preliminary review indicates those files "include reams of sensitive, proprietary, and confidential information, including game design files and Subnautica concepts."

"McGuire completed the trifecta of mischief," the suit continues, claiming that he downloaded 99,902 files on June 27, including hundreds of files related to Moonbreaker, Unknown Worlds' turn-based "digital miniatures experience" that died on the table in February 2024. Unknown Worlds says it sent cease-and-desist letters to all three, and demanded they return everything they'd taken; in response, they denied breaching their confidentiality agreements and "threatened to delete the information themselves," which Unknown Worlds did not find satisfactory because it would thwart further investigations into the matter.

As for why this particular twist to the tale matters in Unknown Worlds' lawsuit, the studio alleges its former heads have "improperly used or disclosed" the information to members of the press in order to publicize their claims against Krafton: "Such public disclosure has harmed and will continue to harm Unknown Worlds and jeopardize the future of the Subnautica franchise."

 

[treelo]

how does one return digital files FFS?