The twisting tale of Krafton, Unknown Worlds, and Subnautica 2 has taken a hard left turn as Game File reports that newly restored Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill has “serious concerns” about Subnautica’s early access release in May.
All of this will make more sense if you know what’s happened previously, so let’s cover that first:
So it’s a happy ending: Gill, the former CEO of Unknown Worlds, is back in the big chair, he’s free to bring back fellow studio honchos Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, and the deadline to earn that big payout is extended as well, to September 15.
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But then, the twist: The day after the ruling, Krafton revealed that Subnautica 2 would roll out into early access in May. It looked to me like the white flag going up, as the statement from soon-to-be-former Unknown Worlds chief Steve Papoutsis said “we look forward to working with Ted Gill to support a smooth transition and work toward a successful launch,” suggesting that Krafton would not challenge the ruling that put him back in the CEO position.
Gill and his lawyers see it differently, however. In a letter sent to Vice Chancellor Lori Will of Delaware’s Court of Chancery, they said Papoutsis didn’t have the authority to set an early access release target for Subnautica 2 after the order putting Gill back in the role, and that by doing so, Krafton has sabotaged the “marketing activity, fanfare, and community coordination” that typically surrounds such announcements, “further damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community.”
Krafton lawyers replied that, timing aside, the message was simply “celebrating” a decision that Krafton had made prior to the ruling and thanking the development team for their hard work, and that as CEO, Gill is free to change that release target if he wants to. But this is also an issue: In a subsequent filing, Gill’s legal team said Unknown Worlds has been working on the game for months under the direction of someone who has no experience with Subnautica or early access releases, and he has no idea where the game actually stands right now; on top of that, he also has to deal with everything involved in the lead-up to launch “with the axe of fan disappointment hanging over his head if he changes the launch timing.”
That matters, because the $250 million payout that started this whole thing is still on the line: The judge’s ruling in favor of Gill and company extended the earnout deadline but if Subnautica 2 fails to meet agreed-upon targets, it won’t be paid out anyway. That potentially puts the ousted Unknown Worlds leaders in a bind: If development has gone awry in their absence, they can either launch in May as Krafton has committed to and risk having an ugly mess on their hands, or delay it further and risk pissing off fans who have already been waiting far longer than the expected to.
That may not seem likely, and Gill said he’s “supremely confident in the skill and dedication of Unknown Worlds’ development team,” but the fact is that he just doesn’t know. And even if Krafton had decided to launch into early access prior to the ruling, as it claims, the timing of Papoutsis’ statement—a situation Gill’s legal team says is “exacerbated” by the fact that Krafton continued to issue confirmations of the May early access target with sites including PC Gamer even after they had filed their initial complaint with the court.
Subnautica 2’s early access release target may hold, in other words, but Gill clearly believes Krafton is still trying to submarine the whole thing, and he doesn’t seem prepared to let it slide. The judge said when she issued the ruling that putting Gill back in charge “will cause tension with the parent company given the obvious bad blood between the parties,” and it sure didn’t take long for her to be proven right.
Krafton’s lawyers have made a separate filing asking the court to determine when Gill will be formally restored to the position of Unknown Worlds CEO: Gill’s team says the order took effect on the morning of May 16, prior to the memo that revealed Subnautica 2’s early access date, while Krafton says it won’t be official until the signing of an “implementing order” that still being finalized, which would negate Gill’s complaint.
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