The last time we saw the former co-founders of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, consisting of Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire, things were not looking good. Their parent company Krafton had just allegedly fired them all without warning and with no explanation. Their baby, the long-awaited Subnautica 2, was allegedly suddenly forced by that same Krafton to delay its release to 2026 against the wishes of the entire development team. All seemingly and purely to allegedly prevent that same development team from receiving $250 million in bonus payments had they met specific revenue goals by the end of 2025. And as the cherry on top, Krafton has just released an official statement containing some wild accusations against the former co-founders.
As you can see: things are not looking good for Unknown Worlds at the moment. Fortunately, we just got a little bit of hope here.
Lawsuit Start: Unknown Worlds Entertainment v. Krafton Inc.
Charlie Cleveland, former co-founder of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, has just announced that he and the other co-founders of the company are filing a lawsuit against Krafton in a blog post. You can read the full text of the blog post below:
Hello everyone,
It continues to be an explosive and surreal time for the Subnautica team and community. None of this is what we wanted. But we truly appreciate the amazing support we’ve gotten from everyone. It means a lot to us, especially now.
As I wrote last week, we know in our souls that the game is ready for Early Access – that’s just how we roll. And we’d like nothing more than for you to play it (game devs live for this). But it’s not currently under our control.
We’ve now filed a lawsuit against Krafton: the details should eventually become (at least mostly) public – you all deserve the full story. Suing a multi-billion dollar company in a painful, public and possibly protracted way was certainly not on my bucket list. But this needs to be made right. Subnautica has been my life’s work and I would never willingly abandon it or the amazing team that has poured their hearts into it.
As for the earnout, the idea that Max, Ted and I wanted to keep it all for ourselves is totally untrue. I’m in this industry because I love it, not for riches. Historically we’ve always shared our profits with the team and did the same when we sold the studio. You can be damned sure we’ll continue with the earnout/bonus as well. They deserve it for all their incredible work trying to get this great game into your hands.
Stay tuned.
-Charlie
Unknown Worlds Lawsuit Against Krafton Gives Hope for Subnautica Fans
Honestly, after all the bad news, this is probably the one bit of good news in this whole sordid affair. Alas, we don’t know yet exactly what Cleveland and the other Unknown Worlds co-founders are suing Krafton for. However, considering Cleveland’s reputation among the Subnautica community, I think we can safely believe him when he basically says that we will soon know the details of this lawsuit.
As for the fate of Subnautica 2 though? That’s currently a mystery. However, Kotaku has just revealed a startling new development on that front: alleged leaked images on Imgur of a “Subnautica 2 Milestone Review in May ’25”.
Alleged Imgur Leaks Damning…But for Who?
The images seemingly depict a long and slightly troubled development for Subnautica 2 that started sometime in Q2 2023. We see an impressive roadmap and list of features that Unknown Worlds gradually cut down over time until we get to where it currently is in Q3 2025.
At a glance, these allegedly leaked images seem to lend credence to Krafton’s claims of misconduct at Unknown Worlds Entertainment. However, if true, they also reveal the current state of Subnautica 2 as of May 2025. From what we can see, the information in these images also damns Krafton at the same time, because it reveals that the game really is ready for Early Access right now release despite Krafton’s claims.
Yes, Krafton can claim all they want that this amount of content isn’t enough for an Early Access release. However, it ignores the context of the Subnautica franchise as a whole. Both the first game and Below Zero didn’t even have this many features in it when they first entered Early Access. Plus, it’s Early Access. The playerbase expects the game to be incomplete at this state, so Krafton claiming that the game in this state isn’t ready for EA comes off as sketchy at best.
Again though, this is all assuming that these leaks are genuine. We don’t even know who leaked them, let alone if they’re real. Take them with a grain of salt until we can confirm the truthfulness of these leaked images.
Source: charliecleveland.com, Kotaku, Imgur
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