On August 15, Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds filed a lawsuit against the studio's former leadership team, accusing them of downloading and retaining confidential company files before their July ousting. The new lawsuit was filed weeks after the former Subnautica 2 leaders sued Krafton, the game's publisher, accusing them of delaying the project to 2026 to avoid paying out bonuses to the development team.
The lawsuit from Unknown Worlds came over a month after its owners, Krafton, fired Subnautica 2's three-person leadership team, which consisted of Charlie Cleveland, Max McGuire, and Ted Gill at the time. The three were removed on July 2 without warning, and Krafton named industry veteran Steve Papoutsis as the CEO of Unknown Worlds. Papaoutsis' previous work includes serving as senior and executive producer of the Dead Space series, and as CEO of Striking Distance Studios, another Krafton subsidiary.
Unknown Worlds Releases Surprise Updates for Subnautica and Below Zero
Unknown Worlds releases two surprise patches for Subnautica and its Below Zero spin-off, with both updates fixing some bugs and various issues.
Unknown Worlds Is Suing Subnautica 2's Ex-Leaders
Days after Krafton issued a formal response to the pending case against them, Unknown Worlds has filed a new lawsuit against its former leaders. In a redacted public filing made in a Delaware courtroom (and corroborated by Game Developer), Unknown Worlds accused Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill of absconding with over 170,000 confidential company files that were allegedly downloaded just before their time with the company ended. The suit was filed in the same Delaware court that saw Krafton issue its response to the former Subnautica 2 leadership. Unknown Worlds claimed that the files contained intellectual property information, business records, and other forms of sensitive information.
According to the lawsuit, McGuire downloaded 99,902 files before his termination, with Cleveland downloading 72,140 files as well. However, Cleveland halted his downloads just eight minutes before Unknown Worlds had locked him out of accessing the system. Unknown Worlds added that the downloads were the largest from all three former leaders since at least 2022. Following their removal from Unknown Worlds, the three former Subnautica 2 leaders filed a lawsuit against Krafton.
Cleveland, Gill, and McGuire stated that Krafton had delayed Subnautica 2 to 2026 to avoid paying the Unknown Worlds development team a $250 million bonus that would be divided among the staff for meeting specific early access criteria in 2025. By delaying Subnautica 2's early access into 2026, this would make Unknown Worlds unlikely to meet Krafton's criteria and miss out on the bonuses as a result. As things stand, only time will tell how the legal issues between Subnautica 2 and the game's former leaders will play out.
- Developer(s)
- Unknown Worlds Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
- Krafton
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op
- Franchise
- Subnautica
