The saga of Subnautica 2 and the ongoing war between developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment and their publisher Krafton continues. The opening salvos began with Krafton suddenly and without warning firing all three founders of Unknown Worlds, replacing them all with a new CEO. The firings were then followed up by a just-as-sudden announcement that Subnautica 2‘s Early Access release was delayed to 2026. All apparently to prevent a $250 million bonus payout to Unknown Worlds should they reach specific revenue goals.
All of this led the fired Unknown Worlds founders to sue Krafton in a formal lawsuit. On July 17, 2025; British video game journalism website Rock Paper Shotgun broke the news that the full details of the lawsuit are now public. All thanks to Charlie Cleveland posting the link to the lawsuit on a Twitter post. You can read the full details of the lawsuit labeled Fortis Advisors v. Krafton here. For those who don’t have the time for it, here’s the summary:
Unknown Worlds Founders Formally Accuses Krafton of “Obstructionist Tactics” to Delay Subnautica 2‘s Launch
After some negotiations for increased compensation for Unknown Worlds employees who joined after the initial acquisition, during which ex-CEO Ted Gill revealed that Subnautica 2‘s “realistic financial projections” were extremely high (and did not take into account related revenue sources), the Unknown Worlds founders then accuse Krafton of engaging in months-long “Obstructionist Tactics” meant purely to delay the launch of the game. All to deny Unknown Worlds that $250 million payout.
These obstructionist tactics included:
- “Assign[ing] a new publishing team” to Unknown Worlds which consisted of a single South Korean “VP of Publishing” with limited video game experience (having only worked on a single Early Access title) and didn’t speak English.
- Repeatedly demanding through official and unofficial channels to delay Subnautica 2‘s launch with little to no explanation.
- Ordered a delay in release after a May 27, 2025 Milestone Review Meeting based on the review of “internal experts” who had little knowledge of video game development, especially of Early Access and of survival games like Subnautica 2.
- Repeatedly attempting to seize control of Subnautica 2’s launch in spite of contract terms saying otherwise.
- Halting all marketing campaigns for the game (which included a planned front cover page for PC Gamer).
- Halting all localization efforts which included translation into nine different languages.
- Halting all “back-end services including analytics and server infrastructure”.
- Halting all policy team work making such things as “terms of use and privacy”.
- Refusing to provide any contract review services from Krafton’s lawyers in advance of their launch.
- Releasing public statements about the game without the knowledge or consent of Unknown Worlds.
- Ordering all Krafton teams to “stop all creative tasks related to Subnautica 2“.
- Ordering all Krafton US teams to cease all communications with Unknown Worlds.
On top of that, the Unknown Worlds founders accuse Krafton of a campaign to pressure them into accepting a lower bonus payout. In fact, on the last day before the firings, Gill attempted to convince Krafton to simply reduce their own payouts in exchange for the studios getting a larger payout to preserve the $250 million payout total. As you can see, this last attempt failed.
What are the Founders Suing Krafton For?
The founders of Unknown Worlds seek quite a bit from Krafton in their lawsuit. At minimum, they want the firings reversed and the founders restored to their original positions, giving back control of the company to the founders, requires Krafton to consult with them in good faith before doing anything to affect the bonus payout, barring Krafton from “disposing of material assets of Unknown Worlds” without the founder’s consent, and barring Krafton from taking any business actions which would decrease the bonus payout.
Krafton Fires Back Very Quickly
Interestingly, Rock Paper Shotgun reveals that Krafton very quickly responded to the official lawsuit with their own statement to Aftermath. That statement says:
“While we are disappointed that Charlie, Max, and Ted have filed a lawsuit seeking a huge payout, we look forward to defending ourselves in court. [D]ecisions were made to ensure Subnautica 2 is the best possible game and lives up to fan expectations. Releasing the game prematurely with insufficient content, falling short of what fans expect in a sequel, would have both disappointed the players — who are at the heart of everything Krafton does — and damaged the reputations of both the Subnautica and Unknown Worlds brands.”
What Now?
Alas, now we wait for Krafton’s legal team to draft their own legal response to the Unknown Worlds founders’ lawsuit. When that will be is anyone’s guess. At the very least though, with the speed both sides are moving at, it probably won’t be long before we see that response. Alas, it still means that Subnautica 2 will see delays in its development. What sort of delays is something we’ll have to wait for, but at the very least, Krafton seems to have succeeded in delaying the game’s Early Access release to 2026.
Opinion: Things are Looking Very Bad for Krafton
At the very least at the moment, it looks very bad.
It also makes some of Subnautica 2‘s marketing campaign suddenly make a whole lot of sense. Or rather, the lack of it. There is a very noticeable lack of official trailers for the game. In fact, if you count all the official trailers between the initial teaser trailer nine months ago to the most recent “Take a Deep Breath” gameplay reveal teaser trailer, there is just two: the aforementioned trailers. There were also some dev vlogs for the game, but they numbered three in total: Road to Early Access, Waterside Q&A, and Building Unknown Worlds. This is an unusually low amount of marketing for a video game as popular as Subnautica 2, which is still the second most wishlisted game on Steam even after all this. It would appear to lend credence to Unknown Worlds’ claims about Krafton pulling all of their marketing support from the game.
What do you all think of this Subnautica 2 debacle and the ongoing war between Unknown Worlds and Krafton? Tell us what you think in the comments section below:
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun, Twitter, Fortis Advisors v. Krafton, Aftermath
