Subnautica, if you ask me, is a game about being incredibly wet and alarmingly hungry. It's an under-the-sea game (you can tell from the name) about hoovering up resources and using them to construct ever-more complex tools that you transcend the barriers placed before you by nature. That's what Subnautica was, and, though I've not played it yet, that's why I'm pretty sure Subnautica 2 is too.

But what if actually it was an ecosystem simulator, or a game where you were constantly bopping between different planets, not just trapped on one?

It's more likely, or at least possible, than you think. In a chat with MinnMax, Subnautica 2 game design lead Anthony Gallegos reflected on the numerous ideas Unknown Worlds dreamt up—and scrapped—for its immensely popular sequel.

"We even entertained ideas like, 'Should this be a direct sequel to Subnautica?'" recalled Gallegos. "Should this be about the same character again? Should we continue the story of [Below Zero]? All those things were explored before we ended up going in a different direction."

Also on the table: something Sea of Thieves-flavoured, centred around "endlessly replayable loops." The long wind-up on development for Subnautica 2 gave Unknown Worlds the space to iterate a lot on some pretty out-there stuff. "We spent like eight months just prototyping wild ideas. Wild ideas like: 'What if we made an ecosystem simulator?' And so some of our early prototypes were like—there's these things that eat clams and the clams breed at a rate of one every 90 seconds, and the clams will then—if you're not careful—eat the kelp forest.

"So what does the player have to do to achieve a balance between [eating] the urchins, the urchins eat the kelp, and left to its own devices, how could these things fall apart or not?"

Which, I must say, sounds like the exact kind of systemic weirdness I go bananas for, but Gallegos says it didn't quite work for Subnautica.

"The problem was, it's really hard to explain to the player without Maxis-level UI—you'd have to bring up a minimap with, like, population density of urchins... so you could understand the information you need to make meaningful change."

That didn't work in a game about being "immersed in the world."

Some other scrapped ideas sound a bit more in keeping with the Subnautica we know, though. "What if we made it closer to something like a No Man's Sky, and you actually went to a bunch of different planets, and every planet had titanium, but you had to figure out how to get it? So on one planet titanium might be rocks on the ground, but another planet it might be fish scales because the fish grow armor," said Gallegos. "Another version was like, 'What if it was a world with no land whatsoever, and your base was a completely mobile thing you built on the surface?' And so everything was diving off of a surface-based floating city that you brought everywhere with you."

Given how well Subnautica 2 is doing, I can't fault Unknown Worlds for leaving these ideas on the drawing board, but I'll admit I wouldn't mind seeing some of them make a return. Maybe in a spin-off? Gallegos sounds open to it. "There are so many spin-off Subnautica games I would love to make that would be wildly different. And I think that's where we could do wildly cool stuff with the franchise," he mused. Clam simulator DLC, coming right up.

Subnautica 2 got into a bit of hot water (get it?) recently over some Discord comments that bluntly stated it wasn't a "killing game". Now, I didn't exactly buy into the critique of the game centered around that—I think it's perfectly fine for videogames to be about different things—but I do appreciate that being hounded by a scary ocean creature with no means of defense probably doesn't feel great.

In a recent interview with MinnMax, design lead Anthony Gallegos explains that the choice wasn't made because "we're like 'we're a game about pacifism' or 'we're a non-violent studio'—the studio's founded by modders who made Half-Life mods and their first mods were all about shooting aliens."

Instead, he explains that "our intent, actually, was two things. One, it was that we wanted to not give people the attitude that they were this dominator over the world, because the message of the game was very much people learning to live in parallel with the world that they're in."

Now, if you're one of the people who think Subnautica 2's being a soft game for babies or something by not letting you make the ocean extinct, that argument might not be all that compelling. Again, I think it's totally fine for games to have different themes—but I think Gallegos' second point is actually far more persuasive even to people who want to go ham with a harpoon.

"We're really inspired by games like SOMA and Alien: Isolation," Gallegos explains, before referencing a blog that SOMA's developer put out discussing the role of combat in horror games: "If [SOMA] ever gave players the means to fight things, no matter how intentionally miserable they made the experience, players would always be like 'it's always better to master the crappy combat than it is to deal with the constant threat intention of a thing'."

In other words, if Subnautica 2 had a combat system—and de-prioritised it to be in keeping with the themes of exploration, rather than subjugation, players would still feel incentivised to learn the combat rather than deal with the deep-sea critters: "They'll be mad at you, and they'll sit there and take the time to learn it … By removing the option to deal with combat, it means that the omnipresent tension and stuff like that gets to be there."

That doesn't mean there won't be more mitigation systems coming, though. After all, Subnautica 2's more episodic release cadence leaves plenty of room for more options when wrassling with the alien ocean.

I regret to say that I haven't actually played Subnautica 2 yet. Something about a part of the world we've only managed to explore a miniscule percentage of is inherently terrifying to me, so I tend to stay clear of anything that involves oceans or other generic bodies of water where I can't stand on my tippy-toes. Don't even get me started on the deep end of the pool, y'all.

Thankfully, many of my colleagues at PC Gamer are significantly less cowardly than I am. Some might argue more stupid than I am—it's the freakin' OCEAN, people—but I am opting to be lovely and professional and polite. For a change.

Either way, they've been having a great time with the game. Our senior guides writer Sean Martin is loving the episodic format and how it's giving him more breathing room to explore the vast ocean, Tyler Wilde waded through the drama that has plagued the game (and continues to do so) to declare that, yeah, it's pretty good actually. Fraser Brown would like the game a helluva lot more if it shut up a bit, but what's some PC Gamer coverage without a little contrarianism?

And of course, a game about uncovering the horrors of the deep blue sea wouldn't be complete without some freaky little sea critters milling around down there. There are plenty of goofy guys and scary scalies, so last week we put a poll to you all asking which of the little weirdos you vibed with the most.

And I gotta say, having looked at your results and the critters in question? I gotta agree with the one most of you voted for as being the best.

33% of you decided that the Periscopic Clowncrab reigned supreme, and oh my goodness. Those crazy elongated Mr. Krabs-ass eyes. Those teeny-tiny little pincers. That adorable, gormless expression. I have no idea how dangerous or docile it is in the confines of Subnautica 2, but I'm going to headcanon that it's about as dangerous as an adorable kitten.

I'm very happy that you all gave the Periscopic Clowncrab first place, because I thoroughly jumpscared myself looking up what our second-prize winner was. The Coral Crab sounds like it's going to be an equally adorable being. It is not. Terrifying legs, intimidating stance, something I would absolutely freak out about if I woke up in the middle of the night to find one in my vicinity. I said freaky, not downright scary! I cannot believe 22% of you voted for this thing.

The Great Jaw and BFJ don't quite give me the same level of the heebie-jeebies, but I am surprised to find them in third and fourth place with 14% and 12% of the votes respectively. I am a little sad to see the critters trailing behind in last place. I understand the Foureye only getting 10% of the votes—it's a little bland, not very freaky.

But the Waxmoon, y'all? That might be one of the coolest critters I've seen. Alright, so it's not downright freaky (which again, was the criteria here) but I absolutely love how gothic the darn thing is. It looks like the kind of war axe you could find in an MMO or something. Or at the very least, something rad I would get tattooed on me.

Was there a particularly freaky Subnautica 2 critter we missed that you want to shout out? (Our own Elie Gould says: "JUSTICE FOR WATER SLUG!!") Be sure to let us know in the comments below. And if you've grown fond of voting on these polls (as I have) then here's another one for you to lend your thoughts to, which you can find just above.

One of the biggest questions surrounding Subnautica 2 isn't about the game at all, but rather the typically dull, staid business side of its development: When is Krafton going to eat that whopper of a bonus it promised Unknown World principals Ted Gill, Max McGuire, and Charlie Cleveland when it acquired the studio in 2021? And the answer, according to a Korea Economic Daily report (via IGN), is, soon.

Citing industry sources, the report says Krafton agreed to pay the trio $3.12 for every $1 (presumably in revenue generated, although that point isn't made precisely clear) whenever Unknown Worlds' revenues exceeded $69.8 million in a single month—to a maximum of $250 million. The problem for Krafton is that Subnautica 2 came out of the gate like a horny rabbit, selling four million copies in less than a week.

Do some simple math—four million copies at 30 bucks each, minus Valve's 30% (we're just gonna slice that off the top of the whole thing to keep it simple) and you end up $84 million—in less than a week.

That figure is way over the reported chicken dinner threshold, and it's no doubt still going up: Subnautica 2 was, until it launched, the most wishlisted game on Steam, and the bulk of those listings remain unconverted. And unlike some early access releases, Subnautica 2 is really good even in its technically pre-release state, boasting a "very positive" rating across more than 94,000 user reviews on Steam.

The strength of the Subnautica 2 launch—the fastest-selling game of 2026 so far, according to Alinea Analytics, outpacing Slay the Spire 2, Resident Evil Requiem, and Crimson Desert—made the big payout seem more or less inevitable, but the KED report nails it down in a way I haven't seen before. If accurate, it also shines a very bright light on a very pointed question: What the hell was Krafton thinking?

You'll recall that getting out of this deal was, in the opinion of the courts, the real reason for Krafton's very sudden and unexpected removal of Gill, McGuire, and Cleveland in 2025. Krafton initially claimed the studio's leaders were trying to rush the game out before it was ready in order to cash in, and then shifted gears to claim they'd "abandoned" their jobs and absconded with confidential company data.

But it came up during the trial that Krafton was well aware of what the Unknown Worlds bosses were doing prior to their termination, and approved of it; worse, it was revealed that Krafton CEO Changhan Kim had consulted with AI on how to get out of the contract because, in the words of Delaware judge Lori Will, he was afraid "he had agreed to a 'pushover' contract" in the Unknown Worlds acquisition, and was about to get rinsed.

Which, y'know, he absolutely is: Krafton reported operating profit of 1.1 trillion Korean won in its 2025 fiscal year, which converts to about $736 million—meaning that the bonus on the Krafton deal alone, if paid out in full, is going to suck up more than a third of the company's annual profits all by itself. Ouch.

I've reached out to Krafton for comment and will update if I receive a reply.

The original Subnautica was secretly a brilliant horror game, so I've been delighted to discover—as I splash around in the abyss—that Subnautica 2 makes the terrors of the deep a lot more overt, really leaning into the fear of the unknown. I apologise to anyone in Paisley (or elsewhere in the world) who has heard my shrieks over the last week.

Unfortunately, for every nightmarish encounter, harrowing near-death experience or existential crisis, there are frequent moments when the spell is broken. The culprit? Audio logs. So. Many. Audio logs.

I should note that I do not hate audio logs. For decades they have been a popular narrative device used by horror games to build tension and provide context even when there are no NPCs around. They allowed games like System Shock and BioShock to fill the void of their ghost towns and ghost ships, giving us windows into the final moments of their denizens while still maintaining a sense of isolation.

This a tightrope walk, though, and overreliance on them can actually shatter that sense of isolation that the developers were attempting to preserve. As is the case in Subnautica 2.

In Unknown Worlds' sodden misadventure, you appear to be the sole survivor of a failed expedition on an alien world. You come to after a disaster, alone and discombobulated. The sole survivor scenario is a compelling fantasy: with only your wits, you can keep yourself alive in even the most challenging of situations, and maybe even flourish in a place where you should be dead.

Subnautica 2 does not leave you alone on this aquatic world, however. Like the original game, you've got a PDA spitting out notifications that initially might seem helpful but soon become infuriating. On your lifepod, and dotted around ruined bases, you'll also find NoA, an AI helper who is also kinda your boss. It doles out hints and tips and objectives, and it really doesn't like being ignored.

As I dive deep into the planet's enigmatic depths, then, I am never alone. I'm constantly being reminded that I need oxygen, food, water and that NoA wants to chat to me. If I decide that, no, NoA can bloody wait, my PDA will just keep reminding me. For some unknown reason NoA is unable to actually talk to me unless I'm standing in front of it, despite the fact that it's clearly capable of interacting with my PDA at any distance.

In these cases I have two options: incessant alerts, or hoofing it back to the lifepod to talk to an AI that I despise. Both of these choices suck.

But these chatty AI companions are not the only things beckoning for me to sit and listen. Scattered throughout the ocean are black boxes and audio logs, offering insights into the now-dead human explorers who were attempting to chart the planet and dissect its mysteries. These were present in the original game, too, but now they are all interruptions, auto-playing as soon as you find them, which completely transforms the tone of the outings they force themselves into.

When I'm exploring an abandoned base while hiding from a huge predator patrolling outside, I do not want to spend two minutes listening to a scientist discussing an argument they'd had with a colleague. All that work Unknown Worlds put into building up the tense atmosphere is flung out the airlock.

Early on, when you can't stay underwater for long, the audio logs are even more frustrating. I'm not the sort of person who can juggle a bunch of tasks and follow a diary excerpt. If I'm exploring a ruin while managing a very limited oxygen supply, that's taking up all of my attention. The audio logs, then, just devolve into an annoying buzz in my ear. And if I stop to listen to them, I'll probably drown—with my PDA's alerts adding to the noise.

Any I ignore can be listened to later, but that's not really the point. The damage to the game's atmosphere has already been done.

Subnautica 2's set up is perfect for a horror game. Alien mind control, cults, an AI with the ability to simply reprint you with parts of your memory carved out to make you more compliant. This is great stuff. Unfortunately, the narrative is entirely reliant on these audio logs—spilling everything as you just float around listening.

While there is a fair amount of environmental storytelling, Unknown Worlds never lets the environment speak for itself. It's always got to be coupled with a voice note from some dead person you don't know. And it's all so explicit. You're not piecing things together on your own—to the point where NoA actively directs you towards specific black boxes to move the story forward.

It's such a shame, because you can make all sorts of incredible discoveries by just going out and exploring the world, but chances are you'll already have had these discoveries spoiled for you by the last words of some dead guy. It just feels like Unknown Worlds doesn't trust us to figure anything out on our own.

Early on, you'll start to occasionally hear a ghostly voice. Given the absence of living human beings on this alien world, that's pretty disconcerting. Discovering the source of the voice and what it means should have been an unnerving adventure, filling your mind with questions and concerns. Instead, you'll rapidly have all your questions answered in the most boring way possible.

It's not even that the audio logs are bad. They're mostly fine, occasionally funny, and sometimes pretty evocative and creepy. But it's the difference between hearing a ghost story and being chased by a ghost. I don't want to hear a story; I want to be part of the story.

The limit of my patience was reached when I visited the Hot Caves. This is an incredible biome filled with magma and the corpses of giant crabs. When you reach it, your PDA announces that there are a multitude of black boxes down there. Now that's some good storytelling, and a good use of the black box system. Without explicitly telling you much, it still lets you know how dangerous this place is. Countless people went in, but nobody came out.

The biome is also cleverly designed. A huge central area that intimidates with its scale, accompanied by labyrinthine tunnels where you'll risk drowning. You can only access this location with your tadpole, but it's so deep that you'll need to actually leave the safety of your vehicle to avoid it taking damage from the pressure. I found myself distressingly vulnerable, and I loved it.

But why are you in this dangerous place? That's right—you're looking for a specific black box. NoA's actually meant to mark where the box is, but in my game NoA bugged out and I had to find it myself. First, though, I managed to find every other black box in the whole area—which definitely wasn't my plan. In almost every case, they merely reiterated information I already knew—thanks to other audio logs.

I left the Hot Caves—a location that had initially impressed me so much—not stressed, anxious or with my heart pumping. I was just a bit bored. And my reward for this expedition was a long, meandering conversation with the digital ghost of a scientist. A 10-minute info dump where I just stood in a room and did nothing apart from occasionally selecting a dialogue option. I was so deflated that I called it for the day.

Initially, I was concerned that the over-reliance on audio logs would undermine the game's inherently horrifying set up. Which it absolutely does, refusing to really let you experience true isolation. But it's worse than that. It also undermines the sense of discovery that Subnautica 2 should be brimming with, the pace of the adventure, the feeling of agency that survival games really require, and all the while it's chipping away at this big mystery without your input.

Subnautica 2 is a brilliant game. Even in early access, it's so clear that this has the right stuff, the potential to become one of the truly great survival games. But all of its myriad promising qualities are held back by a trite narrative structure. If Unknown Worlds had the confidence to just let us experience its world and story on our own terms, without being dragged along by the ramblings of ghosts addicted to exposition, it would really shine.

It's so frustratingly close to being a perfect mystery-soaked horror game. It just needs to shut up.

Like a toothy, grinning leviathan prowling the depths, waiting for unsuspecting explorers to come toodling along in hopelessly delicate, defenseless mini-subs Subnautica 2 continues its reign of terror: Unknown Worlds announced today that the game has now surpassed 4 million sales in less that one week.

The latest sales milestone comes after Subnautica 2 pushed out one million copies in its first hour of release, and then doubled that to two million in its first 12 hours. And despite some professed trepidation from Unknown Worlds parent Krafton, the game's early access state has not diminished enthusiasm for it: Subnautica 2 currently holds a "very positive" rating across more than 74,000 user reviews on Steam.

"We're incredibly grateful for the response from players around the world," executive producer Fernando Melo said. "Seeing millions of players dive into this new world during Early Access has been an incredible moment for the team. Community feedback continues to help shape the future of Subnautica 2, and we're excited to keep building the experience together with our players."

Something else I found interesting in the press blast is the description of Subnautica 2 as "developed by Unknown Worlds, founded by Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire." I get a lot of press releases, as you might imagine, and I don't recall any of them ever pointedly naming the studio's founders like that—except in cases where the PR is about a new studio announcement, of course. It's honestly a bit weird.

Except it's not weird, in this specific case, because of the well-publicized dispute between Unknown Worlds and Krafton. Here's a summary of the whole mess if you're late to the party, but the crash course version is that Krafton promised the studio founders, along with CEO Ted Gill, a veritable boatload of money if Subnautica 2 was a hit, and then tried to weasel out of it—an effort that blew up in the company's face in a very public and humiliating way.

Since then, Krafton has taken a much lower-profile role on the whole, including being removed as publisher on the Subnautica 2 Steam page; Krafton told us in April that it's "focused on successfully supporting the early access launch of Subnautica 2," but what that actually means in a practical sense, I do not know. It reminds me more than a little of Valve's effort to ensure that its name, and not that of publisher Sierra, led the way on Half-Life—and we all know how that turned out. (If you don't know, Steam basically rules the kingdom of PC gaming now, and Sierra went out of business about 20 years ago.)

How close the Unknown Worlds honchos are to their big payout is entirely a matter of speculation at this point, as the requisite numbers have not been revealed publicly. I would imagine, though, that Krafton CEO Changham Kim is probably doing his best to think about something else right now. Anything else.

A weirdly enjoyable side effect of a massive game launch is that it shakes up the most-wishlisted games on Steam. Subnautica 2 has been perched (haha, fish pun) atop the most-wishlisted games on Steam for ages, probably since Hollow Knight: Silksong was released in September 2025.

But as of last week, Subnautica 2 is out! There must be a freshly crowned most-anticipated PC game on Steam! A new king of the hill!

And there is—but that new king shouldn't even qualify for the most-wishlisted games list in the first place. Because it's friggin' Deadlock.

I know Valve likes to pretend its third-person MOBA hero shooter hybrid isn't out yet, but, like… it is. Deadlock has been out for almost two years already. It's updated regularly, including with new characters. It has a peak concurrent playercount of 171,490, and on average more than 50,000 people are playing it at any given time. Millions of people, probably, have already played it at some point.

That qualifies as "out," and when games are out, they drop off the most-wishlisted list, just like Subnautica 2 did when it launched into early access last week. But at the top of the list right now: friggin' Deadlock! It's Schrödinger's game: it's never been released and yet it's one of the most-played games on Steam.

So yeah, real talk, Valve: your weird Team Fortress-ass MOBA is out and you can't keep pretending it isn't. Deadlock isn't "unreleased" or "coming soon" or "to be announced": it's flippin' out, in early access—you know, the term you made astoundingly popular with Steam?

Hell, Deadlock is even in my Steam library despite the fact that I don't like MOBAs and don't have friends. I have no idea who even invited me, but someone did. I've played it. Not much, but I've played it. In 2024, on the same day it should have dropped off Steam's top wishlists page.

Anyway. This is a long-winded way of saying what I actually wanted to say, which is that since Subnautica 2 has launched, the new most wishlisted game on Steam—the real one, I mean—is Light No Fire. Congratulations to Hello Games! Feels like the perfect game to top the list: it looks great, it's got lots of followers, and most importantly, it hasn't been released yet.

Subnautica 2 is now out in early access, and despite all the drama preceding it—so much drama—the game itself is actually great. Hurray! But hold on a second, because publisher Krafton is not done trying to shoot itself in the foot.

We've now got some post-launch drama to enjoy, courtesy of Subnautica 2's ridiculously severe EULA. Now, EULAs often have weird stipulations, frequently serving as a reminder that we don't technically own our games outright, we've just purchased a licence. This means, for instance, if you die and try to bequeath your Steam account to a family member, you're out of luck.

Even with that in mind, there's some wild stuff in the Subnautica 2 EULA, with a bunch of the worst offenders collected by Reddit user SickPois0on on the Stop Killing Games subreddit.

I've already breached the agreement several times myself, even just in this article.

For instance, by poking fun at this overbearing EULA, by the broad language it uses I am arguably breaching the part of the agreement that says I cannot "harm the reputation of Company, our affiliates, our service providers or licensors, or the reputation of the Game, the Documentation or the Services". Whoops!

If our autoplay video shows any clips of Subnautica that we've uploaded, this news story is also in breach of this part: "Any Gameplay Video must include the following prominent disclaimer either at the beginning of the Video or, if live-streaming, near the Video in a visible font: 'This video is subject to the Game’s Terms of Service and was not endorsed or sponsored by KRAFTON, Inc.' We may terminate the limited license granted to you to create, distribute or otherwise make available a Gameplay Video in our sole discretion without notice or liability to you."

Some players have taken this section to mean that the same disclaimer needs to be included on images as well, but this seems to just be a misunderstanding stemming from the clause's mention of images in the context of them appearing (along with music, sound effects and any other assets) in live or recorded videos.

It looks like I'm also breaking one of the clauses right this very second because I fired up the game while my VPN is active, and that's naughty as well, apparently. Per the EULA, I cannot "use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the location of your use or Device, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on the use of the Game, the Documentation or Services or for any other purpose or in a way that violates these Terms".

My VPN is frequently on while I'm at work so I can check game prices and deals in different regions, and I use it outside of work as well. I've never used it to circumvent any restrictions in Subnautica 2 because it's readily available in the UK, but I guess that doesn't matter because the clause includes "any other purpose", which I suppose covers "I forgot to turn it off".

Then there's the clause that says I can't use or permit the use of the game on more than one device at the same time without purchasing a "separate, additional license" from Krafton. Can I still have it installed on multiple devices? Does streaming it from my PC to my Steam Deck or my Shield TV count as using it on multiple devices at the same time? It's a very broad clause, which is a bit of a theme in this EULA.

What else have we got? Oh yeah, here's a good one—and by "good", I mean "broad, confusing and extreme". The EULA states that you cannot "engage in acts prohibited by applicable laws or generally unacceptable by social norms". The other night I left a seaslug on the floor in my base to see if it would die because it was outside of its natural habitat. Is that animal cruelty? I think society would consider that 'not normal'. Oh dear.

And you're not allowed to post spam. Trolling a friend during your underwater adventure? Krafton might take the game away from you. But don't worry, it looks like Krafton could do this at any time and for any reason.

It's worth noting that a lot of the contents of this EULA are boilerplate, even the egregious stuff. This is a legal team ticking boxes. And EULA's aren't automatically enforceable—though this never stops them being full of things that would never pass muster in a court of law.

Also important to note: Unknown Worlds isn't responsible for this EULA. This is Krafton's doing. Over on the Subnautica Discord, animation programmer Sam Dark addressed some of the community's concerns regarding the EULA, stating, "We will obviously never take any action against any player playing the game, streaming it on twitch or youtube or in discord to friends, you can play on linux with proton (we're steamdeck verified), we have nothing that runs outside of the game exe, and we have someone looking into the EULA. You're also welcome to mod the game as long as you follow the rules Donya shared a while back about not selling the mods etc."

This was in direct response to a user worried about the video clause, as well as clauses regarding mod creation and the EULA giving Krafton the right to remotely access "Game Software residing on your Device".

EULAs get changed, of course, and Krafton even notes that the terms of the agreement could change at any time (which, yes, makes it hard to know if you're in breach of a clause), so we might see some cuts and clarifications coming up.

Frankly, Krafton could use a PR win right now. While Subnautica 2 is already a huge success, the messy legal battle has made the publisher look extremely foolish, particularly when it came to light that Krafton's CEO regularly uses ChatGPT, and that he'd used it to try and find a way to get out of paying a bonus to Unknown Worlds' studio heads.

Anyway, the drama continues.

If you've had your eye on the Subnautica 2 discourse for the past few days, you already know it revolves around a single topic: to kill or not to kill?

Long story short, players want a way to fight back against hostile sea creatures like Nibbler Mangos and Hammerheads, pointing out that the original Subnautica had a survival knife you could use to stab mean fish and even leviathans to death.

Subnautica 2 devs, meanwhile, have responded by essentially saying: "How about no?" Okay, what they actually said was go play some other game if you want to kill stuff, because Subnautica 2 is "not a killing game." Fair enough: it's their game and if they don't want to add weapons, they obviously don't have to.

But now there's now an option if you like Subnautica 2 but still want to kill stuff: use a mod. The Killable Creatures mod by jibotron doesn't give you any weapons, but it weaponizes some of the tools you already have and lets you fight back against all those oceanic pests.

"Getting into Subnautica 2 for the first time and then realizing they took away the ability to kill made me angry," modder jibotron said. "Why take away a feature so simple especially when its a sandbox survival game? And after seeing the devs tell people it wont be coming back and it doesn't suit their vision for the game I thought why not make it myself having experience modding other games."

With the mod installed, swinging the survival multitool (it's a hammer) deals 20 damage to creatures and the sonic resonator deals 50. Do enough damage and you can kill just about any creature you see, after which they'll float upside down like an aquarium casualty.

I've been swimming around this morning trying it out, and it does work, though quite honestly I'm siding with the devs on this one because I don't think the game really needs traditional weapons. You could already discourage Nibbler Mangos with a sonic resonator blast, and they do so little actual damage it hardly seems worth bothering with.

In fact, just chasing the Nibblers around to kill them was far more of a chore than worrying about a stray nibble every now and again. It takes several resonator blasts to kill them, and once they've been stung they swim away so quickly that it's pretty time consuming to chase them down to deliver a few more blasts.

That said, I have to admit it's pretty satisfying to waste one of those blue bastards. I don't mind the tiny bit of damage they do, but they've startled me often enough that they deserve to pay the ultimate price.

I also took out a Hammerhead—they're irritating since they'll headbutt your parked tadpole endlessly—and I even resonated a Coral Crab to death, which just made me feel sad since they're cool to look at and don't seem particularly hostile. I haven't tried taking out leviathan yet, because I imagine that'd take quite a long time. I'm sure someone will do it, though.

You can kill smaller fish, too, like the ones you usually grab to use as food, though the downside is that their floating corpses aren't harvestable for resources. You can't harvest the bigger fish, either, which is a shame. Revenge on nibblers would be much more satisfying if I could cook 'em up and nibble on 'em too.

You'll find the Killable Creatures mod on Nexus Mods. Like most Subnautica 2 mods, you'll need to install the UE4SS mod first.

One of the many tough aspects of creating things for public consumption—whether the great works of art of old or videogame news articles (which are the great works of art of the 21st century)—is dealing with public feedback.

So I feel some sympathy for the Subnautica 2 dev (spotted by GamesRadar) who's rankled a few fans by telling them that, if violent gameplay is what they're after, they'd be better off playing something else.

In response to a player on Discord lamenting the fact they can't kill anything in Subnautica 2, level designer Artyom O'Rielly was pretty blunt: "We aren't a killing game. Go play Sons of the Forest or something if you want to kill." I'm gonna go ahead and guess that O'Rielly wasn't intending to tell players to go do one, but that's kinda how it came across, and the comment attracted more than a few negative reactions from onlookers. It was not long before Reddit threads spawned from upset fans.

Perhaps the most material objection to O'Rielly's comment was the fact that players currently have no way to deter aggressive fish from their bases. Fair enough if Unknown Worlds doesn't want to make violence a part of its game, but you have to admit it's a tad frustrating to be smothered in angry fish you can't do anything about. But fear not, O'Rielly swung back to assure players that's not meant to happen, and "That'll be fixed in a future update too."

You ask me, I do think it's nice for a game to offer the fantasy of existing with nature rather than violently dominating it (you might say that nature contains plenty of violence already, which is fair, but all nature outside of humanity that I'm aware of also lacks the sapience to abstain from that arrangement), and I think little kerfuffles like this are just the price you pay for having this kind of immediate interface between devs and fans.

And hey, you get nice moments too. In response to another fan, a little later on, thanking the team for the game, O'Rielly replied: "I am glad you are enjoying the world we built and love. We want to keep updating and giving you more and more until 1.0."

It's rare, especially in this day and age, to see a genuine comeuppance play out in real time—which is why I'm savouring this particular piece of glee as I'm informed that Subnautica 2 has hit a 2 million copy milestone in just 12 hours, after selling a million copies in one.

Per a press release sent to PC Gamer, "Peak concurrent players across Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox exceeded 651,000, with Steam alone reaching a peak of more than 467,000 concurrent players. This marks approximately nine times the all-time peak concurrent player count of the original Subnautica, which launched in 2018."

As to why this is bad news for Krafton CEO Changham Kim, it's a doozy. Back in July of last year, it was revealed that the entire leadership of developer Unknown Worlds had been gutted.

Things went to court, where Kim was accused of kicking out the studio's former heads over a potential payout (to the tune of $250 million, if the game reached certain sales targets) that would earn him a "reputation as a pushover and endanger his position as CEO." Krafton was also accused of purposefully delaying the game to avoid the payout window.

During a cross-examination, it was also confirmed that Kim had gone to ChatGPT for advice on what to do: "Now, ChatGPT [is] start[ing] to answer that it is difficult to cancel the earn-out," Kim wrote in a message to Krafton head of corporate development Maria Park.

A judge ordered former Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill be reinstated over a "material breach of contract". Basically, Krafton has to pay the money it said it would pay, and "can—and must—act in good faith to navigate their remaining contractual relationship."

Obviously, that hinges on Subnautica 2 doing well. Which it has done. Tremendously.

It's not clear what the exact requirements were for the returned Unknown Worlds leadership to get their payout, but I'm willing to bet that, at the very least, 2 million copies being sold in 12 hours has put them on the right track, if not already well over the finish line.

Now, I'm no cutthroat capitalist businessman, but I do have to wonder out loud if trying to sabotage the launch of a game with a huge amount of hype around it (Subnautica 2 was the most wishlisted game on Steam for a while), spoiling one's working relationship with the people who made it, and dragging oneself to court and being forced to admit you, a big CEO, were relying on ChatGPT for advice—if all of that is worth just paying the money you said you'd pay in a contract you signed.

I suppose it's neither here nor there, but I will eagerly await the news of Unknown Worlds getting their payout with a deep sense of schadenfreude.

Original story:

The Subnautica 2 early access launch that spawned so much recrimination (and so many billable hours) is finally here, and all that sweat and anger seems kind of funny in hindsight—because after all that drama, Subnautica 2 is good, and it's a hit, too.

Subnautica 2 launched like a rocket on Steam, surging to more than 370,000 concurrent players in its first 30 minutes. That number would climb by another 100,000 before finally starting to ease off—not bad at all for a random Thursday in May. But it turns out that there are a great deal more people who own the game but just haven't played it yet, because they have to work at a popular PC gaming news site or whatever.

Over 1 million Subnauts have already dived into Subnautica 2 🤯 We can't thank you enough for your support!

— @subnautica.bsky.social (@subnautica.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-05-15T13:09:27.412Z

The timing is notable: That post went up at 12 pm ET on May 14, one hour after Subnautica 2 launched. One hour!

The rapidity of that ascent, like hauling ass from a Reaper Leviathan, is not entirely surprising given that Subnautica 2 was the most-wishlisted game on Steam, hitting more than 5 million wishlists just prior to launch: It's almost inevitable that a game is going to put up big numbers when that many people are giving it the eyeball.

That also means that the vast majority of people who added it to their wishlist are yet to commit, so the potential for more millions to come in the relatively near future is clear. That's especially true when you consider that at least some of those hour-one Subnautica 2 purchases were made by people who hadn't wishlisted it first—not to mention the "very positive" rating on Steam, which is bound to help convince people that they don't need to wait for early access issues to be hammered out before they dive in.

That's good news for Unknown Worlds, but also bad news of a sort for parent company Krafton. Despite Krafton's claims that it was simply doing what was best for the game, courts ultimately ruled that its dismissal of Unknown Worlds principals Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire was driven by a desire to avoid paying them a $250 million bonus that will be earnable if Subnautica 2 achieved certain sales targets.

A filing shared by Kotaku's Ethan Gach in 2025 said Krafton was putting together a plan to sell 2-3 million copies by the end of that year, which "would have left the sellers poised to easily make their full $250 million earnout." The specific sales numbers required for that earnout aren't known, but given that Subnautica 2 is more than a third of the way to the high end of the target cited in that filing in its first hour—and that the judge in the lawsuit extended the deadline by nine months to make up for the time lost—I'd say it's very likely Krafton is going to eat it on this one.

Modders sure work fast, huh? Subnautica 2 has only just launched into early access and already there are mods for it, including a couple that a lot of players will be keenly interested in.

If you were wondering if Subnautica 2 had a debug console like the original game, it doesn't—at least not officially. However, modders have uncovered a debug console and with a couple quick mod installs you can start using Subnautica 2 console commands to enable cheats like god mode and gain access to all of the blueprints and recipes in the game. You can also use Subnautica 2 item ID codes, which you'll find below, to add resources and items to your inventory.

You can even change your FOV in Subnautica 2 using console commands, an option not included in the game yet.

How to access Subnautica 2's debug console

1. Download UE4SS for Subnautica 2 zip file
2. Find your game installation folder (on Steam, right-click the game in your library, go to manage, then browse local files)
3. Find the "\Subnautica2\Subnautica2\Binaries\Win64" folder
4. Place the zip file in that folder and extract it (or drag the zip file contents there)
5. Download the Console Commands mod zip file
6. Open it and click through to find the "DebugUIToggle" folder
7. Place it in the "\Subnautica2\Subnautica2\Binaries\Win64\Mods" folder

That's all you have to do. Start up Subnautica 2 again, and while playing press F2 (you may have to tap it twice) to access the command console. Tapping F2 again closes the console.

When you press F2, you'll see a number of commands you can click right there on your screen that will let you spawn items in your inventory, toggle individual survival systems like starvation and suffocation, and add slots to your inventory.

However, there are also commands and cheats you can enter manually into the console. Here are the console commands we've found and what they do.

Subnautica 2 console commands

There are more Subnautica 2 console commands, and we'll expand this list as we find and test more. Note: there are some commands that are in the game but are currently disabled, even with mods.

These commands exist but are not working yet:

• Goto
• Fastswim
• Noclip
• Fly
• Warp

Subnautica 2 Item ID codes

If you'd like to spawn items into your inventory using the console, the command is:

Item [name] [amount]

For instance, to spawn 5 units of quartz into your inventory, you would type:

Item quartz 5

Many, but not all, of the item ID codes in Subnautica 2 are the same as the item's name (such as titanium or copper) though some differ. Below are the item ID codes we've found so far, though keep in mind several are placeholder items that are not officially in the game yet and may not work or serve a purpose. We'll update this list when we find and test more item ID codes.

We might need to wait for an official update to use those functions. In the meantime, Unknown Worlds has confirmed to PC Gamer that official console commands and FOV options are planned for Subnautica 2's early access.

"We are planning updates to the game that will include console and camera functions, but are still trying to figure out the timing as we want to make sure these roll out in a way that enables all players—console and PC—to use them," game design lead Anthony Gallegos told PC Gamer.

You've just splashed down in Subnautica 2 and your first order of business after finding the Habitat Builder is to begin constructing your undersea base. But where should you build it? There's mystery and danger in every direction, so you might need some help zeroing in on the best Subnautica 2 base locations.

Ideally, you'll want to be close to harvestable resources like titanium and quartz—you're gonna need plenty of both to build your base, after all—but also useful materials like copper, silver, and lead. Powering your base is also a concern, because solar power will only keep the lights and oxygen on during the day, so being close to a strong ocean current to generate electricity with a turbine is important.

Starter area base location 1: Under the lifepod

For your first base, I recommend doing what I and pretty much everyone else at PC Gamer did: build right under or next to your lifepod. While you're scrimping to stretch your meagre resources, the pod will serve as an extra room with storage and a fabricator, and since it's above the surface of the water, it'll supply you with endless oxygen. It's also got NoA, your AI, and a respawn point: why spend the resources to rebuild those immediately if you don't need to?

Plus, when you start building you'll only have solar power to draw from, which means your underwater base will be dark and without air as soon as night falls. You're gonna need to spend time inside your lifepod for a while, so you may as well stick close to it.

And, if you swim about 60 meters east of your pod, you'll find a strong current that goes right up to the ocean's surface, perfect for plunking down a couple hydro electric turbines so you can power your base at nighttime once you unlock that tech.

Starter area base location 2: Old Habitat

300 meters directly north of the lifepod, look for these interesting rock structures with a couple enormous jelly-things (BFJs) draped over them. You'll get a PDA notification of "Old Habitat" when you're close, and you'll see the remains of a crumbling base.

One warning: there are plenty of hostile fish interested in headbutting you patrolling this area, but descend into the caves directly under the rock structures and you'll find oodles of copper, silver and titanium deposits—and those jerk fish won't follow you down there.

You'll also find a small colonist's bunker hidden at the bottom of the cave containing a few goodies—the bunker makes a nice place to grab a quick lungful of oxygen while you're gathering resources down there. You'll find a strong natural current at the seafloor running between the two rock structures, perfect for powering your base around the clock.

Starter area base location 3: Cicada Wreck

400 meters directly northeast of the lifepod, look for a huge piece of wreckage. It's called the "Cicada Wreck (Lander Garage)" and when you get close you'll get a journal entry for it.

This isn't the most picturesque place to build a base: the water is murky and the wreck doesn't make for great scenery. But it's a primo spot for easy access to loads of resources. There's tons and tons of lead, more than I've seen anywhere else on the map, plus some sizable quartz and copper deposits and even a small amount of titanium, all scattered below and around the wreck. There's also a nice long current running right next to the wreck for your turbine power needs.

The hidden benefit of the Cicada Wreck is that it's also in the direction the game will eventually move you toward, northeast, so it's a handy spot and will save you some of the laborious back-and-forth you'll be doing as the story takes you deeper into the world.

Starter zone: what about south and west?

I wouldn't bother looking for a place to build in the south or west of the starter zone: Subnautica 2's early access map pretty much ends to the west after 300 meters. There's no brick wall or anything, but you'll cross a barrier, get an in-game warning that the game is in early access and the map isn't finished yet, and you'll see nothing past it but water and featureless rock.

Also, a giant thing may appear and try to eat you. Seems like a bad place to build.

Heat Caves: should you build there?

As you proceed northeast, you'll head into much warmer waters, and once you've figured out how to survive them you'll see a lot of thermal vents, which can eventually serve as yet another power source for your base. It may be tempting to build a new base around some of these vents, but honestly, I'd hold off building anything sizable near the heat caves. The story will pretty quickly send you even further east, past the heat, into a prime spot for a second base.

I won't spoil anything about what you'll find there—it's story related—but you'll know when to start building another base because the game will essentially tell you to do so. I haven't found any usable currents—there are some small currents but they won't spin a turbine—or any thermal vents in this new area yet, so you may want to consider unlocking bioreactors before you start building there so you can power your habitat at night.

That's my best advice for base locations so far, but I'll be back to update this list once I've made a bit more progress in the game. And if you stumble across and primo base locations in Subnautica 2, be sure to let me know in the comments.

Who can't relate to this classic blunder: You promised the heads of the game studio you acquired a $250 million bonus if their game sold well, and now it's the most-wishlisted game on Steam and it's looking like you'll have to pay up. Ay, caramba! What's a CEO to do?

After consulting ChatGPT, the answer that Krafton CEO Changhan Kim came up with was to fire the studio heads despite not having a convincing reason to do so other than to get out of paying them $250 million. It didn't work out.

The studio in question is Unknown Worlds, and the game is survival adventure Subnautica 2, which is out in early access this week—and still looks primed to hit whatever revenue goal will trigger that big payout, which is back on the table after a judge slapped an UNO Reverse Card on Krafton's plans. The publisher announced today that Subnautica 2 has been wishlisted over 5 million times on Steam.

The drama kicked off in July 2025, when Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill and founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire were unexpectedly told to pack up their desks. Initially, Krafton claimed that the three studio heads were fired because they were planning to release Subnautica 2 prematurely, and that it was so flawed that this could cause "irreversible harm to the entire IP franchise."

We at PC Gamer thought this was pretty strange at the time, because we'd recently been planning a Subnautica 2 cover story for our magazine. We were awaiting the artwork for the cover in June 2025 when we were told that the studio was no longer able to commit to an in-depth feature, and the whole thing was cancelled. How'd they go from being ready for primetime to so-bad-it's-unreleasable seemingly overnight?

In the ensuing lawsuit brought on by the ousted studio heads, we learned about the $250 million bonus, some of which would have been shared with staff at the studio, according to Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier. The ousted studio heads alleged that Krafton had made up that stuff about Subnautica 2 not being ready, and that it had only disposed of them to avoid signing a big check.

Krafton later changed its claims: The issue became that Gill and the others had "abandoned" their jobs and made off with confidential company data.

It was true that Cleveland and McGuire were performing limited roles at Unknown Worlds, but the trial revealed that this was already known and accepted by Krafton. And the trio did back up confidential data, but as Delaware judge Lori Will pointed out in her decision, they did this after they were fired in order to "protect the studio's work product amid Krafton's takeover attempt." And regardless of why they did it, it turns out you can't fire someone "for cause" if the cause happened after they were fired.

It did not help Krafton's case that its CEO had asked ChatGPT for advice on how to get out of the $250 million bonus. Krafton initially denied that Kim had consulted the chatbot, but he later testified that he had used ChatGPT "to get faster answers," and in a message sent to Krafton's head of corporate development in June 2025, he relayed that ChatGPT had told him it would be "difficult to cancel the earn-out."

"Fearing he had agreed to a 'pushover' contract, Krafton's CEO consulted an artificial intelligence chatbot to contrive a corporate 'takeover' strategy," wrote Will in her decision, which required the company to reinstate Gill as CEO of Unknown Worlds and extend the eligibility deadline for that $250 million bonus.

Krafton disagreed with the ruling, but did as ordered. It also, to Gill's dismay, announced a May early access release window for Subnautica 2 before he'd had a chance to resume control. He objected to the overstep, but ultimately the release window stuck: Subnautica 2 releases in early access this week, on May 14.

The Subnautica 2 Steam page no longer lists Krafton as its publisher, but the change is only cosmetic; Unknown Worlds remains a subsidiary of Krafton, which is "supporting the early access launch of Subnautica 2," a rep told us.

Will we find Subnautica 2 in such a poor state this week that Krafton's claim about its unreadiness will be vindicated? I suppose anything's possible. Subnautica is one of the most popular survival games ever—we awarded it an 89% when we reviewed it in 2018—and impressing fans all these years later won't be an easy trick. But one of the founders, Cleveland, seemed genuinely baffled by the claim that Subnautica 2 needed more time, saying after he was fired in July 2025 that it was ready to go.

The moment of truth approaches, with the caveat of course that this is an early access release, and Unknown Worlds expects it'll be two to three years before Subnautica 2 hits its 1.0 milestone.

"Our goal for the full version of Subnautica 2 is a more polished, feature rich version of the game with more content than at Early Access release," reads Subnautica 2's Steam page. "Throughout Early Access, we plan to release a number of updates that add new content to the game—such as more biomes, creatures, craftables, features, and narratives. We also plan to continue to improve the game experience through bug fixes and optimization as well, largely with your help as players."

Considering the months of turmoil surrounding the development of Subnautica 2, it's not just exciting that the undersea survival game is finally launching into early access next week on May 14—it's a minor miracle.

But while the legal battle between publisher Krafton and the founders of developer Unknown Worlds was incredibly loud and extremely public, we haven't heard anything from the people actually making the sequel amidst all that courtroom drama.

Subnautica 2's design lead Anthony Gallegos finally—and quite diplomatically, I've gotta say—let a tiny little bit of it loose in the latest devlog posted today on YouTube. Gallegos doesn't say anything specific about the lawsuits (plural), but it's at least interesting to hear one of the development team acknowledge that working amidst that protracted public battle wasn't all that easy.

"As some of you know, the team has weathered a lot," Gallegos said, making a strong opening bid for understatement of the year.

"But let me be clear about something. Despite any rough patches, our goal has always remained the same, to deliver the best Subnautica experience we can," he said.

"When it was at its hardest, two things kept us going. One is the excitement of working on the next Subnautica game, and what we have is really special. The other is you," Gallegos said. "Your endless enthusiasm and excitement drives us to deliver something worthy of the name."

In the video, Gallegos says that Subnautica 2 will be in early access for at least two years and while "what we have on day one is the most ambitious starting point we've ever had," players can expect a "strong playable foundation" but also bugs, an unpolished experience, and the lack of a full story.

That said, buying the game in early access means you'll get "all our content up to 1.0 release and beyond," Gallegos said. Subnautica 2 will cost $29.99 when it launches next week.

"When you buy the game, you don't just support the franchise, you support Unknown Worlds and all the employees who help bring this to life," Gallegos. "Welcome aboard, Captains."

You can watch the full devlog below.

Subnautica 2 will launch into early access on May 14, a new trailer confirms. If you're surprised I don't blame you: the sequel has been subject to endless controversy, with studio Unknown Worlds and publisher Krafton at loggerheads about when and how it should be released.

It's a long story at this stage, but the short of it: Subnautica 2 was initially meant to release in the second half of 2025. But in July Krafton gutted Unknown Worlds' leadership, including CEO Ted Gill, and then delayed the early access release into 2026 amid many and varied public accusations.

The most relevant of those accusations, to us at least, is that Krafton didn't think the game was ready for early access; it wanted more content. The publisher also claimed that had Subnautica 2 released in 2025 as planned, it would have caused "irreversible harm to the entire franchise". That claim was later mysteriously dropped.

Those are the key points—it's a tangled 'n' murky affair—but Gill was eventually reinstated as CEO in March at the command of a court, and a May release was set. But even that theoretically positive development was fraught with tension: Unknown Worlds wasn't happy with the Krafton-made release date announcement.

None of which instills much confidence in the early access aquatic survival sim that'll hit Steam on May 14. It'll be interesting to see whether Krafton was on to something when it hoped to delay the launch. Or perhaps Unknown Worlds will be vindicated? We'll find out in a matter of weeks.

There's a lot resting on it: Subnautica 2 is currently the most wishlisted game on Steam.

PC Gamer life simmer Mollie Taylor said last year that Inzoi, the much-hyped Sims-like from Krafton, is a "shallow imitation" of the series that inspired it, and that she's not even sure "it understands what makes those games so special in the first place." Seems like Mollie was pretty much dead on the money with that analysis, as Inzoi Studio head Hyungjun "Kjun" Kim told IGN that making life sim games is tougher than he expected, and "if you asked me if I would turn back time and make it again, I think I would hesitate."

"The biggest thing I learned is, The Sims has been the biggest for three decades, and I think I have figured out why that is," Kim said. "The Sims 3 was open world, and The Sims 4 moved to a more loading-based [game]. I understand why they did that. It’s really hard. There may not be any other team that attempts to make an open world life sim game."

Kim said he's been making videogames for 29 years, but despite that extensive experience, he realized that his ambitions for Inzoi were "too much." That's why Inzoi Studio decided to release a demo (no longer available, sadly) ahead of the game's early access release: "We actually did it to prevent people who didn't quite fit the game from making the wrong purchase."

Inzoi came out strong, and sold more than a million copies in its first week, but it didn't really set the world on fire the way fans of the genre hoped it might. Concurrent player numbers on Steam have declined dramatically, although Krafton argued sales are a more relevant metric for a premium singleplayer game. There's no getting around the fact that Inzoi launched with "many shortcomings," as Kim acknowledged, although that's hardly unusual for early access releases.

"The reason we had to use early access is that we cannot see the results ourselves," Kim said. "So we had no choice but to use early access. The users are testing it on our behalf, so I always feel sorry for them."

Frankly, I feel like Kim is maybe being a little tongue-in-cheek here. Yes, Inzoi players are effectively serving as beta testers (and paying for the privilege), but that's the deal: You lay your money down up front, you get to play before most other people, and in theory at least, your feedback shapes the course of the game up to release. It maybe sucks a bit when things are rough out of the gate, but there's nothing underhanded about it, as Kim well knows.

And Inzoi remains a work in progress: Inzoi Studio recently shared a first anniversary message on Steam, providing both a retrospective and look at the game's future, which includes a new content roadmap, enhanced mod support, and a "UGC (User-Generated Content) ecosystem where the entire playerbase can be involved in the creation process."

PUBG: Blindspot showed real promise when we took it for a spin in 2024: PC Gamer's Jake Tucker said that "with some polish to the controls and a proper onboarding experience, this could be a genuinely fun, highly accessible tac shooter." But it failed to make much of a splash when it launched into early access in February, and less than two months later Krafton has seen enough.

"Since our last update, the team has been exploring multiple ways to improve the experience and move the game forward," Sequoia Yang of developer Arc Team wrote in a Steam update. "However, after careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that we are no longer able to sustainably provide the level of experience we set out to deliver through early access.

"As a result, PUBG: BLINDSPOT’s Early Access service will come to an end on Monday, March 30."

Unlike its namesake, PUBG: Blindspot was a top-down shooter—a bit like Rainbow Six Siege run through Diablo. Yang said it was "a bold attempt to explore new possibilities within the top-down tactical shooter space," and it was reasonably well received by players: The "mixed" user rating on Steam is just one point under the "mostly positive" rating, and one of the top problems cited in negative reviews is difficulty finding matches because of the dearth of players.

And that's the real issue: Like so many free to play games, PUBG: Blindspot fell into a concurrent player count spiral, with low numbers of players contributing to long matchmaking queues that drive away even more players. Premium games can survive that sort of flat spin, at least for a while, but free to play games that rely on robust audiences making in-game purchases just can't.

The PUBG: Blindspot situation may have been stressed even further by the financial situation at Krafton: The company's revenues grew by 23% in 2025 to more than $2.1 billion, which is undeniably a lot of money, but the more important consideration—profits—declined by 11% over the same period.

And Krafton has been showing some signs of strain. In November 2025, it launched a voluntary resignation program for its employees, offering hefty buyout packages for anyone who agreed to quit. Krafton also imposed a hiring freeze at around the same time. Its recent lawsuit loss-with-a-capital-L to the three ousted heads of Subnautica 2 studio Unknown Worlds could also prove very costly.

It's not clear what's next for Arc Team, which is not a Krafton studio: Yang said the studio "will take some time to regroup, and we hope to return with new experiences in the future."

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:

• Krafton acquires Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds
• Krafton ousts Unknown Worlds leadership, says they're dicking around too much
• Krafton says they abandoned the game
• Unknown Worlds' ousted leaders say no, Krafton is trying to avoid paying the $250 million bonus it signed up for
• ** confusing legal fight **
• (Amusing 'who needs lawyers when you have AI' interjection)
• Judge says Krafton was totally trying to avoid paying the $250 million bonus it signed up for, hands Krafton a very, very big L

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.

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.

Just one day after taking a very hard L at the hands of the once and future leadership of Unknown Worlds, Krafton says Subnautica 2 will launch into early access in May. The release target was revealed in a statement shared with IGN that also appears to indicate that Krafton will not challenge the order that former Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill be restored to the role.

"We want to take a moment to sincerely thank every member of the Unknown Worlds team and our partners," current Unknown Worlds chief Steve Papoutsis wrote in a message to studio employees. "Over the past nine months, you have worked incredibly hard to bring Subnautica 2 close to the finish line. That effort has resulted in a game we are truly proud of, one that each of us and our partners at Krafton unanimously determined is ready for Early Access release in May.

"Thanks to your dedication and talent, we've added more story chapters, built new creatures, and created new biomes along with many other features. With this significant progress, we have passed Krafton's milestone review last week and are now ready to start our open development journey alongside our community. We have full confidence that we have reached a point where we can deliver an experience our players will love."

Krafton confirmed with PC Gamer that the internal statement attributed to Papoutsis, and the early access release target, are accurate.

"The team has made meaningful progress following the milestone review approved earlier this month, and has been working toward an early access release in May," Krafton said.

"While we respectfully disagree with this week's court ruling and intend to explore all legal avenues, our goal is to minimize disruption to the team and to the release plan. We remain committed to an open development approach, working closely with the community as development continues, and are focused on delivering the best possible experience to players."

There's no missing the not-exactly-subtle suggestion that Krafton was right all along, and it was only through the tireless efforts of Unknown Worlds developers that Subnautica 2 is finally, just now, almost ready for early access release. And that may well be the case—but there's also no denying that Gill, Unknown Worlds co-founder Max McGuire, and Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland were ready to pop the cork on the game in 2025, so there's at least the possibility that Krafton is doing a little face-saving as it bows to the inevitable.

And bowing to the inevitable does seem to be what's happening here. Along with teeing up Subnautica 2 for May, Papoutsis also said, "We look forward to working with Ted Gill to support a smooth transition and work toward a successful launch," strongly suggesting that Gill will be back in the big chair soon.

And if Subnautica 2 is a hit in early access, Krafton will also have to sign the big cheque: Along with ordering Gill's full restoration, the ruling also extends the deadline on the $250 million bonus at the center of the dispute to at least September 15, 2026.

PUBG maker Krafton is getting into the defense business: The company has signed an investment deal with Hanwha Aerospace that aims to "develop and commercialize technology across various sectors, including defense," with a particular focus on "physical AI."

Krafton formalized its intent to become an "AI-first company" in 2025, a move that included a commitment to spend $70 million on a GPU cluster that will "serve as the foundation for accelerating the implementation of agentic AI." Agentic AI is, simply put, AI that operates with some degree of autonomy: You tell it what to do, and it goes and does it. Kind of like me!

Physical AI, as defined by Nvidia, "lets autonomous systems like cameras, robots, and self-driving cars perceive, understand, reason, and perform or orchestrate complex actions in the physical world." I am compelled at this point to state that, despite the most fervent wishes of grasping AI tech executives, AI neither understands nor reasons anything, but for now we'll just roll with it.

The announcement of the deal says Krafton's "experience in operating large-scale game data and physics-based virtual worlds serve as core assets in training and verifying physical AI software." It's essentially the brains, in other words, while Hanwha provides the muscle, in the form of everything from space launch systems and aircraft engines to artillery, armored vehicles, air defense hardware, fire control systems, and precision guided munitions.

The deal includes both a "strategic alliance" between Krafton and Hanwha "to develop and commercialize technology across various sectors, including defense," as well as a commitment on the part of Krafton to invest up to $1 billion into a Hanwha Asset Management fund that "aims to expand the physical AI ecosystem and strengthen technology competitiveness."

If your immediate reaction to 'autonomous AIs for in-world weapons' is that they're inventing terminators, well, I don't want to sensationalize or anything but yes, that's exactly what's going on. And maybe I'm stretching the definition of "exactly" here just a little bit, but Krafton CAIO Kangwook Lee—also the CTO of Ludo Robotics, a US-based "AI and robotics laboratory dedicated to the advancement of physical AI"—recently posted a message on X that led with this very distinctive image, and you can make of it what you will:

Krafton CEO Kim Chang-han sealed the 'I find this all rather alarming' deal by saying he expects the partnership to result in "a global defense technology company like Anduril," the company founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey that specializes in "advanced autonomous systems" and bemoaning the decline of the American empire.

Kim is also known for his personal enthusiasm for AI: After being advised by his team that trying to avoid paying a $250 million earnout to the heads of Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds would likely end in legal action, for example, he reportedly turned to ChatGPT for a second opinion and followed its advice instead. Krafton was subsequently demolished by the former heads of Unknown Worlds in a lawsuit filed after Kim terminated them in what the judge said was a "pretext" to avoid paying the $250 million earnout.

Nine months after Krafton gutted the leadership of Subnautica 2 studio Unknown Worlds, leading to an acrimonious legal dispute, a judge has ordered that former CEO Ted Gill be reinstated, and that control over the game's early access release schedule be returned to him. The judge also extended the $250 million earnout period that was central to the dispute to at least September 15, 2026.

"Krafton breached the EPA [Equity Purchase Agreement] by terminating the key employees without valid cause and by improperly seizing operational control of Unknown Worlds," the ruling states (via Kotaku).

"Edward Gill is hereby reinstated as CEO of Unknown Worlds, and his period of operational control under Section 2.7(f) of the EPA will be extended by the time that elapsed between his wrongful termination and his restoration. The July 1, 2025 Board resolution is declared ineffective to the extent it infringes on Gill's operation control right.

"Krafton is enjoined from circumventing section 2.7(f) or impeding Gill's authority over the early access launch of Subnautica 2 and must immediately restore his access to the Steam platform. Finally, the base earnout Testing Period is equitably extended by 258 days to September 15, 2026, and Fortis [the law firm representing Unknown Worlds] retains its contractual right to further extend the Testing Period to March 15, 2027."

The judge acknowledged that putting Gill in charge of Unknown Worlds again, and returning control of Subnautica 2, "will cause tension with the parent company given the obvious bad blood between the parties." But that, they continued, "does not excuse a material breach of contract" or override the performance clause agreed to by both parties, and that both Unknown Worlds and Krafton "can—and must—act in good faith to navigate their remaining contractual relationship."

Interestingly, the judge also said Unknown Worlds itself will suffer "palpable" harm if that action isn't taken: "Unknown Worlds is being run by a part-time CEO who manages another studio and had never played Subnautica before his appointment. Key staff members have quit, and the early access release of Subnautica 2 has been put in jeopardy."

Lest there be any ambiguity, the judge declared very clearly that they found Krafton terminated the Unknown Worlds studio heads specifically to avoid paying out that $250 million bonus that would have been required if Subnautica 2 achieved specific sales targets following its early access launch—essentially agreeing with the central point of argument of the former Unknown Worlds heads.

"When an employer faces a contractual payout it wishes to avoid, it is heavily 'incent[ivized] to go rummaging through the employee’s history to find any reason it can to announce that the termination was really for cause.' That is precisely what happened here. Frustrated by the Key Employees’ refusal to forfeit operational control and facing a nine-figure liability, Krafton went searching for a pretext.

"This court of equity will not permit a party to use the after-acquired evidence doctrine to fabricate Cause where the evidence shows the termination decision was made for different reasons. The doctrine prevents a wrongdoer from profiting from concealed misconduct. It does not grant an employer license to retroactively invent grounds for termination."

The judge ruled that formally ordering the restoration of Gill's fellow Unknown Worlds chiefs, studio co-founder Max McGuire and Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland, was not necessary to remedy the contractual breach because they had "entrusted [their] authority to Gill," and with Gill returned to the CEO role, he has the discretion to bring them back or not as he sees fit.

Other parts of the case are still ongoing, and it's not clear whether Krafton will, or even can, appeal this ruling, but it's clearly a major loss for the company.

"While we respectfully disagree with today’s ruling, we are evaluating our options as we determine our path forward," Krafton said in a statement provided to PC Gamer. "Today’s ruling does not resolve the former executives’ claim for damages or an earnout related to Subnautica 2, with further litigation still pending. In the meantime, Krafton's immediate focus remains unchanged: delivering the best possible game to Subnautica’s fans."

Krafton also announced today that CEO Kim Chang-han earned more than 8 billion won ($5.4 million

I loved Subnautica, and I could not have cared less about Subnautica's base-building. For me, it was all about exploration, discovery, the horrors of the black depths, and the sweet relief of escape to the warm, well-lit shallows. I built what I needed to get by, but honestly my base was utterly basic: As George Carlin put it, just a place to keep my stuff while I went out to get more stuff.

Apparently I'm in the minority in that regard, though, because Unknown Worlds' latest Subnautica 2 dev vlog is all about base building, and it's clear the team is putting a lot of effort into it—and based on the responses, fans are very happy about that.

Subnautica 2's base-building system is "brand new," base design lead Kiel McDonald says in the video, and aims to "keep the spirit" of base-building in the first two games while enabling players "to express themselves even more."

"I think the main thing is our new procedural system, where basically you don't have to be constrained to a specific shape," McDonald says. "We have moved away from fixed pieces for the most part, and have a much more sculptural, expressive system."

That means players will be able to customize their bases to a far greater extent than they could in Subnautica and Below Zero: Windows can be applied in various shapes, and the studio plans to let players paint their base in different colors, use different colored lights, and apply "different cosmetic options inside." And of course you'll be able to share the majesty and/or coziness of your undersea abodes with other players, although entirely at your own risk—and entirely optionally, as Unknown Worlds reassured us in February.

For players who are into building bases in their survival games, this will no doubt be very cool—and looking at the YouTube page, where people seem to be lining up to mash the "like" button, there's an awful lot of you out there. For those of us who are not, well, there's always the ol' 'build a box with a door' option to fall back on, which is what I will absolutely be doing.

The trailer does not, unfortunately, provide us with a release date: Subnautica 2 remains slated to launch into early access sometime later this year.

Krafton loves AI. Indeed, the publisher loves it so much that it followed a record-breaking quarter in November by starting a hiring freeze and a voluntary resignation programme so it could restructure itself around AI. Instead of investing in people, it's investing $88 million in a technology that has yet to remotely prove itself in videogame development.

But wait! AI is really here to help humans, not kill their careers. Please ignore what's staring you right in the face and instead trust Krafton's new chief AI officer, Kangwook Lee. He's been the head of Krafton AI since 2022, and in this new executive role he will oversee AI R&D and "mid-to-long-term innovation strategy".

And he wants you to know that AI is your friend.

"Krafton uses AI as a tool to amplify human imagination and creativity, not replace it,” he said. “Rooted in our core gaming business, Krafton will continue to explore future possibilities backed by AI innovation and data for long-term growth and player value."

How does Krafton use AI to amplify human imagination and creativity, you might be wondering? Unfortunately, Lee doesn't offer any examples, but that's OK, we can just look at what he's been doing since he started working with Krafton on its AI ambitions.

Last year, for instance, he worked with Nvidia to introduce "co-playable characters"—a stupid name for gen AI NPCs—in Krafton games, most notably Inzoi. Nvidia's been experimenting with this tech for a while now, and the results are poor. Interesting, perhaps, but a big step down from curated, human-created NPCs.

If you're wondering how shallow, uncanny NPCs amplify human imagination and creativity, I'm right there with you. Because surely it doesn't. Like, at all.

The most notable impact of AI at Krafton, so far, is the cost on the human side of its business. It's getting rid of current employees and not bringing in new ones. This is, like so many AI endeavours, bad for people—with the exception of AI specialists and the eager suits who fund them.

Then there's the AI robots Krafton is researching. Physical AI and robotics will fall under Ludo Robotics, which is still being established, and the Korean subsidiary will be led by Lee. I'm sure that'll be good for humans.

From Krafton's announcement, there's only really one place where AI research and implementation might actually make life better for Krafton employees, and that's the pillar of "enhancing operational efficiency". This is all about streamlining workflows and reducing repetitive tasks. This can be helpful, to an extent, at least until things like creating bespoke concept art end up filed under "repetitive tasks".

Anyway, expect to see more AI slop and creepy NPCs who sound like robots attempting to infiltrate human society in your Krafton-published games. Yay.

Buried in a dark corner of a 2021 Krafton financial report was a mention of something called Project Windless, an adaptation of a Korean fantasy novel series called The Bird That Drinks Tears. We've had a few glimpses of it since then, and there's a handful of concept art posted on developer Krafton Montreal's website, but today we got our first real look at it in the State of Play showcase, and hoo boy, this is something.

I'm going to encourage you to just watch the trailer straight away, because I feel like if I try to explain it in advance, you will think I'm joking. Maybe you won't if you're familiar with The Bird That Drinks Tears, but I am not, and so I expected something thoughtful, meditative, poetic: A bit like a videogame take on the Jet Li classic Hero. That is not what The Bird That Drinks Tears is.

The Bird That Drinks Tears is, in fact, a massively buff seven-foot-tall warlord who dual-wields huge swords and bathes in the blood of his enemies. He is relentless, furious, and without mercy: His foes flee before him, and he allows no escape. To stand before The Bird That Drinks Tears is to know fear, and then to die.

He is also, essentially, a bipedal chicken.

That murderous fowl, in the reality of the game world, is the Hero King, a legendary warrior of the rekons, a race of "towering massive bird beings known for their overwhelming strength and ferocity." Yup, he sure seems to bring that to the table, more than what I'm used to seeing from my local poultry.

Just look at him.

The rekon are one of four intelligent races in the Project Windless game world, alongside Nhaga, Tokkebi, and of course humans, each of whom have their own unique culture, conflicts, and worldviews. That game world is "rooted" in the world of The Bird That Drinks Tears, but is set roughly 1,500 years before the original story, a "largely unexplored mythical age" that Krafton says enables the game to "serve as an entry point for global audiences while also expanding the universe for longtime fans."

Combat in Project Windless is "real time, fast-paced, and skill-based," but takes advantage of what Krafton calls "Mass Technology" to insert players directly into large scale battles, where they'll engage enemies in combat while directing tactical maneuvers that influence the broader battle.

"From the start, we asked ourselves what it really means to play a legendary figure in a fantasy world," said Patrik Méthé, Krafton Montreal studio head and creative director on Project Windless. "For us, that meant giving players real agency, not just in combat, but in how wars unfold, how alliances are formed, and how history is written. Project Windless is built around the idea that legend is not something you observe, it is something you actively create through play."

Project Windless is a "premium, singleplayer experience," Krafton said, and will have no multiplayer or live service components, which frankly I take as a big plus. Also, and I'm speaking for at least three other PC Gamer writers here, it looks like it might be—to quote news writer Lincoln Carpenter—"sick as hell."

There's no release date yet, but you can find out more at windless.krafton.com. (It's not up just yet but should be very soon.)

Oh, and if you haven't seen Hero, you really should check it out. It's excellent.

PUBG: Blindspot is a new 5v5 top-down tactical shooter. Previously known as Project Arc, it's a PUBG spinoff which will shrink down the map to a basic team deathmatch and demolition mode. It's certainly a step in a different direction, but players will be able to figure out for themselves whether it's headed in the right direction very soon, as the PUBG: Blindspot launch times and release date are just around the corner.

The new top-down shooter will be heading into early access, meaning players will have a hand in shaping its future. "We believe the best version of PUBG: Blindspot can only be created together with our players," an official blog post says. "Early Access allows us to practice Open Development, where community feedback directly shapes the game’s systems, balance, and overall direction before full release."

When is the PUBG: Blindspot unlock time?

PUBG: Blindspot goes into early access tomorrow, Thursday, February 5, 2026, except for those in the PST timezone, you guys get it early on Wednesday, February 4. PUBG: Blindspot's official social media has only confirmed a few time zones, but we can infer the rest from what we've been given.

The launch times are as follows:

• Pacific: 9 pm PST (Wednesday, February 4)
• Eastern: 12 am EST
• UK: 5 am GMT
• Europe: 6 am CET
• Korea: 2 pm KST

It will also be free-to-play, so at the very least, you'll be able to jump in right away and try it all out for yourself.

Is there preloading for PUBG: Blindspot?

You can't preload PUBG: Blindspot right now, and that's unlikely to change. But at just 8 GB, I doubt it'll be an arduous task to download it when it finally releases into early access.

PUBG: Blindspot system requirements

Here are the minimum system requirements for PUBG: Blindspot:

• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i5-4430 / AMD FX-6300
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 / AMD Radeon R7 370
• Storage: 8 GB available space

And that's all there is, folks. There are currently no recommended specs on PUBG: Blindspot's Steam page, so I suppose the minimum specs are all you really need and are likely good enough to run the game without any major issues.

Since it was bought by Krafton in July, players have been looking at Last Epoch developer Eleventh Hour Games with a worried expression. Will the formerly independent studio pivot to AI, or be gutted like Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds was?

No, said founder Judd Cobler, and it won't be charging money for Last Epoch's upcoming expansion Orobyss either, so don't you worry about that. It will, however, be charging money for the first of several new "Paradox Classes" coming out alongside it.

This is despite the fact that, when it was Kickstarted, Last Epoch promised, "The only form of real money microtransactions Last Epoch will ever have are cosmetic" and a "one-time payment will be all that a player will have to spend to have the complete Last Epoch experience and be on the same footing as other players."

Last Epoch's overall Steam rating of Very Positive now stands in marked contrast to its Mixed rating based on recent reviews, only 42% of which have been positive. As well as the broken promise of the Kickstarter and concerns the new class will be overpowered to encourage people to buy it, players raise ongoing issues with Last Epoch that have yet to be addressed. "Half baked skills and items for the existing classes have never been fixed, tooltips LITERALLY LIE TO YOU in some cases", says one player, who goes on to complain, "The campaign still is half finished and leaves quite a bad taste in my mouth where it ends off."

Another raises the issue that "many spells and passive points with existing classes are bugged and do not function properly, or at all" before summing up by suggesting you should "Avoid buying this game and go play Path of Exile instead."

We learned in 2023 that PUBG was being fitted for an extraction shooter spinoff, referred to at the time as Project Black Budget. It was set to launch in the second half of 2024, but then 2024 came, Project Black Budget didn't, and frankly we forgot about the whole thing. I did, anyway.

Now, as the second half of 2025 withers away, it's back, officially known as PUBG: Black Budget and with a closed alpha test set to begin in December.

Developed by PUBG Studios, Black Budget is a PvPvE shooter set on a remote island that's trapped in a time loop and also being consumed by a supernatural phenomenon called—wait for it—the Anomaly. Okay, no points for originality there, but the game also promises "a focus on exploration and discovery rather than pure survival and combat," which I do find interesting. I've really been enjoying Arc Raiders lately, primarily because it's proven a far more cooperative experience than it appears at first blush, so an extraction shooter that leans into that side of the gameplay, as opposed to just shooting the hell out of everything, is one I want to know more about.

This test will be available exclusive on PC via Steam, and is open to players in North America, Europe, and Asia. Two sessions are planned, December 12-14 and December 19-21: To get in, head around to the Steam page, mash the "request access" button, and wait.

PUBG Studios didn't say how many testers it's looking for but given the early state of things, it's fair to assume that the number is limited and not all will get in. It also warned that, as an alpha test, this first go-around with Black Budget might not be the smoothest gaming experience ever.

Despite that potential for "various technical issues," there's no NDA on the test sessions, so those who do get in can "freely stream, capture, and share gameplay content throughout the testing period," and access keys will be given out via Twitch Drops while the test sessions are running.

"This open format is designed to encourage community feedback and engagement, helping PUBG Studios refine gameplay systems and performance ahead of future testing phases," PUBG Studios said. That's a sharp contrast to Bungie's approach to Marathon, which is having a playtest of its own in December that's restricted to North America and "strictly under an NDA," just a few months before it's set to go live.

Krafton's life sim Inzoi released in early access this March, since when it's had a slightly troubled time of things: initial sales were impressive, and the game receives regular updates and hotfixes, but something about it hasn't quite landed with the vast audience that still prefers the slightly cosier and odder vibes of The Sims.

Hope springs eternal, however, and now director and producer Hyungjun 'Kjun' Kim has announced that multiplayer functionality is in the works for Inzoi: which, given the popularity of a certain Sims multiplayer mod, may well attract some curious life simmers. What's most surprising, however, is that the suggestion of this functionality came from the very top.

In a new Gamer Galaxy interview on YouTube (first spotted by GR+), Kim says that the studio recently had a visit from South Korean president Lee Jae Myung. The country's leader went "straight to the Inzoi side" and started giving them all chapter-and-verse.

"He came in and suddenly sat down, and I had to explain the game to him all of a sudden," says Kim. "He ignored everything, sat down, watched the game, and then offered his opinion. It almost felt like I was getting talked to by the company's CEO."

It's certainly the kind of advice that one would find hard to refuse. Kim continues: "The president asked, 'Shouldn't we add multiplayer to the artificial world and then put ads on the billboards to boost sales?'"

Apparently he wouldn't let it go, and so Inzoi players can now expect to see a multiplayer element to the title: albeit there aren't yet any details or a timeframe. "We never officially announced it, but I think because of that day and probably this podcast, the news has started to leak out a bit," says Kim. "Inzoi is indeed developing a multiplayer aspect to the game."

We should probably caveat this: Kim says that the president's suggestion directly led to the decision to add multiplayer, which may well be true and justified by what he said. It may also be the case that multiplayer was always planned, and this is a funny anecdote to hang it on.

Either way reaction among the fanbase is split, with some feeling that Inzoi has much bigger issues to fix first. A recent player survey suggests that Inzoi's biggest problems right now are overwhelmingly the fact it's "lacking simulation content" and has painfully awkward social interactions.

Which would seem like important things to fix first. But it's also the case that Inzoi has one big direct competitor that doesn't offer a co-op experience without mods, and official multiplayer support would be a pretty good differentiator. Whatever the truth: the president requested it. You don't have much of a choice after that.

The legal dispute between Krafton and the former top dogs at Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds is now at the point where the lawyers are fully in control, sifting through the sands of everything everyone's said and done over the past decade or so in search of the Ace Attorney bomb that will blow things wide open. It's something of a drag, to be honest—a lot of he said/she said—but one interestingly odd bit did emerge from the smoke. Krafton CEO Changham Kim reportedly asked ChatGPT to help him figure out how to avoid paying the Subnautica 2 earnout he'd agreed to when acquiring Unknown Worlds.

When asked yesterday whether that claim was accurate, Krafton denied it and described the allegation as a "distraction from [the former Unknown Worlds heads] own efforts to destroy evidence." Court transcripts released today reveal something of a different story, however.

"I started discussing this matter with various teams within the company to find—to figure out what we could do," Kim testified in his deposition (via translator) when asked what he did when he discovered that Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland and Unknown Worlds co-founder Max McGuire weren't directly involved in the development of Subnautica 2.

"So I talked to the legal team, the finance team, and the corporate team and the PR, all these various teams, and I also actually searched on ChatGPT to get faster answers to figure out what kind of rights we have."

When asked why he would consult with ChatGPT on a matter like this, Kim said, "I think, just like everyone else, I am using ChatGPT to get faster answers or responses, just like Google search."

During cross-examination, lawyers for the former Unknown Worlds principals also point out that in a June 2 message sent to Krafton head of corporate development Maria Park, Kim included a ChatGPT link, and subsequently referenced the chatbot's advice directly: "Now, ChatGPT [is] start[ing] to answer that it is difficult to cancel the earn-out," Kim told Park in June. "If so, this is a contract under which we can only be dragged around."

The lawyers also point out that while that particular ChatGPT conversation was subsequently deleted, as was one about a "no-deal scenario" with the studio, others from around the same time still exist. On redirect, Kim said he deleted those queries because "what I learned is that—from OpenAI, is that if you use certain important information concerning your company, then that type of information can be used by OpenAI for learning purposes."

It's all rather messy: Kim, who acknowledged making "dozens" of ChatGPT inquiries every day regarding general business at Krafton, said he was merely using it to research his options, as he would with any other search engine. And that's maybe to be expected, given Krafton's embrace of AI: In October, the company announced an "AI-first strategy," which Kim said at the time will help it "lead AI innovation across the gaming industry." The company also plans to spend $70 million on a GPU cluster to "support multi-stage tasks requiring sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning [and] serve as the foundation for accelerating the implementation of agentic AI."

But with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, not to mention the future of one of Krafton's potentially most lucrative games, I would think that shareholders would expect more from their CEO than just kickin' it around with a chatbot. The deletion of inquiries related to Unknown Worlds also casts a pall on things: Kim said he simply "deleted those things that included [the] company's confidential information," but coupled with yesterday's flat-out denial of any ChatGPT usage regarding the matter, it all starts to look rather shaky.

I've reached out to Krafton for comment and will update if I receive a reply.

A pre-trial brief filed by lawyers representing the ousted former heads of Subnautica 2 studio Unknown Worlds alleges that Krafton CEO Changham Kim was "desperate" to avoid paying them the bonuses required by their acquisition contract because of the "professional embarrassment" that would result from the perception that he overpaid for the studio. The filing claims Kim went so far as to consult with AI to figure a way out of paying, but even ChatGPT told him he was probably stuck.

The legal dispute between Krafton and Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland, CEO Ted Gill, and studio co-founder Max McGuire has been dragging on since July, when all three very suddenly left their positions. While the departures were initially presented as amicable, it quickly became clear that it was anything but. Legal action was filed by both sides and it's gotten very messy: Krafton initially said the three were fired because of the state of Subnautica 2 and their insistence on releasing it before it was ready, but in September it seemed to drop that claim in favor of focusing on allegations the founders had "deceived" Krafton, including that they'd downloaded confidential information relating to Subnautica 2—which only came to light after they'd been dismissed.

Today's pre-trial brief, available in full via Game Developer, seems aimed at rebutting those claims, alleging that Krafton was fully aware of what was happening at the studio, and in some cases had even expressed support for it: Regarding Krafton's complaint that Cleveland had effectively abandoned Subnautica 2 to focus on making a movie, for instance, the filing claims Krafton actually encouraged it.

The filing claims, as the former Unknown Worlds heads have maintained all along, that despite Krafton's insistence to the contrary, the Unknown Worlds heads were fired simply so Krafton wouldn't have to pay the sizable earnout required by the studio's acquisition contract.

"Already concerned that Krafton had paid too much to acquire Unknown Worlds, Kim feared that making any earnout payment to Founders would earn him a reputation as a pushover and endanger his position as CEO," it states. "Desperate to avoid such a professional embarrassment, Kim obsessed over finding a way to avoid Krafton’s obligation to pay the earnout."

The pre-brief claims Krafton head of corporate development Maria Park told Kim that Krafton would likely have to pay the earnout if sales targets were achieved even if the studio heads were dismissed with cause. At that point the CEO "turned to artificial intelligence to help him brainstorm ways to avoid paying the earnout," the filing claims. "ChatGPT likewise advised that it would be 'difficult to cancel the earnout'."

A footnote in the filing states that "Krafton did not produce the ChatGPT conversations and, when pressed, confirmed that they no longer exist," and the company denied the allegations entirely in a statement provided to PC Gamer.

"No," a company representative said when asked if the claim was accurate. "This claim is simply a distraction from their own efforts to destroy evidence, such as Charlie’s reminder to the other Key Employees (Max and Ted) to delete anything ‘incriminating’ from their own ChatGPT accounts. the contrary to Fortis’s claims, Krafton offered to extend the earnout period if the Key Employees returned to their contractually required roles.."

The ChatGPT-powered brainstorming is amusingly ironic given Krafton's recent claim to being an "AI-first company," but it's ultimately a moot point. The filing claims that since it was apparently impossible to avoid paying the earnout if Subnautica 2 launched as planned, the only option was to push it outside the earnout window. To that end, the filing claims Krafton initiated "Project X," aimed at either establishing a deal with the founders to delay the Subnautica 2 early access launch or forcing a takeover of the studio.

Krafton denied that allegation as well, calling it "without merit." The company said that as a result of Charlie and Max's actions, "Krafton was forced to gather and keep track of the ongoing attempts to repair those relationships, try to get Charlie and Max back doing their jobs, and work to release a successful Subnautica 2. The former executives are trying to turn that hard work into something nefarious."

In a follow-up statement, Krafton added, "We were forced to make a change when the former leaders showed little interest in the development of Subnautica 2, which has always been our top priority. Now, this trial comes down to plaintiffs asking to be restored to jobs they were not doing, said they had no interest in doing, and had previously declined requests that they come back and do those jobs.”

As a result of all of the above, Subnautica 2 is now slated to launch into early access sometime in 2026. I've reached out to Krafton for comment and will update if I receive a reply.

In October, PUBG and Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton announced that it would be undergoing a "complete reorganization" to become an "AI-first" company, planning to invest over 130 billion won ($88 million) in agentic AI infrastructure and deployment beginning in 2026. This week, as it boasts record-breaking quarterly profits, the Korean publisher has followed that strategic shift by launching a voluntary resignation program for its domestic employees, according to Business Korea reporting (via Automaton).

The program, announced internally, offers substantial buyouts for domestic Krafton employees based on their length of employment at the publisher. Severance packages range from 6 months' salary for employees with one year or less of service to 36 months' salary for employees who've worked at Krafton for over 11 years.

The voluntary resignation program follows a November 4 earnings call in which Krafton announced a record quarterly profit of 1.052 trillion won ($717 million). During the call, Krafton CFO Bae Dong-geun indicated that Krafton had also halted hiring for new positions, telling investors that "excluding organizations developing original intellectual property and AI-related personnel, we have frozen hiring company-wide."

Given its hiring freeze, the voluntary resignation program, and its heavy AI investments in GPU clusters and "an AI-centered management system," it certainly seems like Krafton is betting on cutting labor costs by replacing human workers with AI work automation. A Krafton representative, however, told Business Korea that the resignation program isn't an attempt at workforce reduction, but an effort to "support members in autonomously deciding whether to continue the direction of change."

"The core purpose is to support members in proactively designing their growth direction and embarking on new challenges both inside and outside the company amid the era of AI transformation," the Krafton representative said.

Whatever Krafton calls it, it remains unclear whether the games industry's recent gambling on AI automation is capable of paying off. Recent reports indicate that current AI tech—while being used as a justification for layoffs—is making developers miserable at major publishers like EA by creating more frustrations than productivity gains.

Elsewhere, Krafton remains tangled in its messy lawsuit with the ousted founders of Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds, who accuse the publisher of sabotaging the game's development to avoid paying their $250 million earnout. Krafton maintains that it's "focused on developing Subnautica 2 and delivering the best possible experience to players."

Earlier this week, Pocketpair Publishing boss John Buckley said his company isn't interesting in handling games built with generative AI: "If you're big on AI stuff or your game is Web3 or uses NFTs, there are lots of publishers out there [who will], but we're not the right partner for that." One of those partners, it seems, is PUBG maker Krafton, which announced today that it is transforming into an "'AI-first' company."

The announcement, posted on Krafton's Korean-language site and translated via Google, says the change will represent "a complete reorganization of the company's operational development system, placing AI at the center of problem solving." The goals of the new strategy include "fostering change in individuals and organizations, increasing company-wide productivity, and accelerating mid- to long-term corporate value growth," the company said.

To make the magic happen, Krafton said it will invest roughly 100 billion Korean won ($69.7 million) in a GPU cluster to "support multi-stage tasks requiring sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning [and] serve as the foundation for accelerating the implementation of agentic AI." Another 30 billion won ($21 million) will be allocated annually, beginning in 2026, "to actively support its employees in directly utilizing and applying various AI tools to their work."

"Through our AI First strategy, Krafton will expand the growth opportunities for each member, expand creative attempts centered on player experience, and lead AI innovation across the gaming industry," Krafton CEO Kim Chang-han said. "We will establish operational standards centered on AI and present best practices that can be referenced in the global gaming industry."

What this works out to in practical terms remains to be seen but on a gut level, well, I think it sounds terrible. Broadly speaking, I see two likely outcomes: Layoffs, because C-suite types love to imagine that good videogames can be made by thinking machines that don't need to be paid or given time off; or a catastrophic collapse when the AI bubble pops and companies find themselves sitting on mountains of Nvidia hardware that's suddenly destined for Craigslist, and of course the mountains of debt they took on to acquire it in the first place. Maybe it'll be the ol' one-two: First the layoffs, then the collapse. That's how these things often work out, after all.

And hey, maybe it'll all work out. It's entirely possible that Krafton's vision for the future is right on the money, and all of this will indeed pave the way to a better, more productive, and more creative future for all of us. I don't think so, and JP Morgan chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon would seem to agree—not that AI is going to give us good videogames, of course, but that the bubble is going to pop and it's going to be pretty bad when it does.

Update: Krafton has shared a statement on the lawsuit's discovery phase, which I have included in full below.

Krafton believes the discovery requests made by the former executives are overly broad and extend beyond what is relevant to the core issues. We have complied, and will continue to comply, with all of the court’s rulings on discovery. We remain focused on developing Subnautica 2 and delivering the best possible experience to players.

Original story: It wasn't all that long ago that we were anticipating the imminent arrival of Subnautica 2. The sequel to the superb underwater survival game has yet to appear, though, and the founders of Unknown Worlds have been ousted by owner Krafton, leading to a messy legal dispute between the two parties.

One of the reasons given for the termination was the state of the game. The founders believed that it was ready for an early access launch and planned to go through with it; Krafton, meanwhile, believed it wasn't ready for its debut and that the founders had been shirking their duties.

But there's been a surprising U-turn, with Krafton significantly changing its argument.

The lawsuit is now in the discovery phase, so Fortis Advisors, which represents the ousted founders, sought discovery to see if Krafton held evidence to back up its claims. "But despite its obvious relevance, Krafton feigned astonishment during the parties' meet and confers at how it could possibly be part of Phase I," Fortis said.

Essentially, Krafton said that documents relating to the readiness of the game were irrelevant to the termination—which is what this phase of discovery is focused on—despite this being the reason cited in the termination notices, which was also repeated publicly and in court.

"The termination notices of the founders gave one reason for their termination," said Fortis, "and that was the supposed lack of readiness of Subanutica 2 for release. Krafton reiterated that basis for its actions repeatedly."

Fortis called it a "seismic shift in the case" and "a little bit bewildering". This was also echoed by the judge, Lori W. Will, when the parties met for a ruling on the filed motions, saying: "Well, that's something that we definitely need to get to the bottom of today, because that is precisely what was cited as the reason in the answer."

Krafton's representatives were not clear about why this argument has been taken off the table, only that it has been, and that it's no longer why they are saying the founders were terminated.

Instead, Krafton is focusing on the argument that the founders "abandoned their posts" and "deceived" their employer. Causing more confusion is the accusation that the founders downloaded files and kept devices with confidential information on them. This only came to light after the termination, so its relevance has been questioned.

Krafton's position is that this justified their termination after the fact, and it filed a motion to forensically inspect the founders' devices. The founders, meanwhile, contend that they had a right to those documents and devices, and that the motion is too invasive—and to the latter point, the judge agreed.

Fortis also alleged that Krafton hasn't been playing ball, pushing back against some of its requests for discovery and refusing to confer. It claimed it needs emails and documents that relate to the earnout (the founders have accused Krafton of intentionally delaying the game so it wouldn't have to pay a $250 million earnout) but Krafton is only willing to provide data from two people high up in the company, rather than employees who were "on the ground".

Another point of contention is what documents Krafton is willing to provide: specifically, only where the word "earnout" intersects with the word "termination".

"That's very narrow," the judge replied. "That sounds like a really terrible email for someone to write, and it's hard for me to imagine that they'd be that blunt about it."

Krafton also argued that the plaintiff requested too many custodians—people who possess relevant data—and that it would take too long. The judge agreed the number was too high, but that the two parties would need to confer—something that Krafton had previously declined to do after it changed its argument. "That's very frustrating," the judge said.

The discussion of the motions ended with both parties agreeing to confer, at least, and confirmation that game readiness was not the reason why the founders were terminated.

Still, the whole thing remains rather messy, and it continues to be unclear why Krafton has made a U-turn when it was so adamant before that the state of Subnautica 2 was one of the reasons the founders were fired, which only happened after discovery was sought. What does seem clear, though, is that this likely won't be resolved any time soon.

Development of Subnautica 2 has taken a bit of a back seat in the minds of players ever since the Unknown Worlds founders' lawsuit began. But a recent dev blog not only reveals that business has been carrying on as usual but also shows players a first look at a new kind of Leviathan coming to Subnautica 2: the Collector Leviathan.

When designing the Collector, it was important to the dev team that it would be "distinct from Leviathans in our previous Subnautica games," Cory Strader, the visual development lead, explains in the dev diary. "We started with multiple rounds of quick, low-detail thumbnail sketches, exploring a wide range of shapes and silhouettes. And out of all of the designs, this Cthulhu-inspired beast resonated with the team."

It certainly looks like the kind of thing that would make my soul leave my body while venturing too far into the deep waters of Subnautica. And crucially, it doesn't just look terrifying; it's also extremely dangerous to players.

"Our main goal with creatures was to make them feel reactive," Antonio Munoz Gallego, gameplay lead engineer, says. "The creature is constantly re-evaluating the situation in real time."

According to the design brief that was shared during the dev diary, the Collector Leviathan is "Intelligent but easily irritable, it disdains players, tadpoles, tridents, and anything it does not recognise." It'll spawn in the sparse plains about 20-25,000 units away from the player once they enter this area, and "It has four tentacles to grab, crush, swat, and terrify players," Strader adds.

It may sound suitably terrifying, but there are ways to predict and escape from this beast. It will apparently communicate its mood with clear sounds, making it easy for players to know when they've pissed it off. You can also hide from the Collector, although it will look for you for a few minutes. Then, if you manage to get away once you've put 45,000 units of distance between the two of you, it will despawn. So good luck and godspeed to those who have to outrun it.

Unfortunately, there's more of a gruesome fate for those who don't manage to get away. Game designer Louis Karim lays out the set piece for players taken by the Collector and what it will look like to be gobbled up by it.

While senior technical animator Stefaan Sorensen reveals that he apparently perfected the tentacle grab: "When the tentacle grabs the player, or vehicle, when all the systems are working together, this provides a fairly cool visual experience." So, at the very least, players will be treated to a cool scene in their final moments.

Just as prior wishlist chart-toppers The Day Before (lol), Manor Lords, and (briefly) Stray gave way to Hollow Knight: Silksong's long reign, so too has Team Cherry's platformer passed the torch to a new contender. Subnautica 2 is now the most wishlisted game on Steam, followed by Valve's MOBA-shooter Deadlock. Slots three through five are taken up by Battlefield 6, Borderlands 4, and Light No Fire.

Steam's publicly available data isn't the end-all, be-all of the hobby⁠—not the least because it doesn't account for other storefronts or console players⁠—but it is useful for divining trends and getting a snapshot of the current gaming scene.

It's kind of weird that the two most desired PC games of the moment are such basket cases, right? They boast pre-release anti-hype cycles to give the long Silksong silence a run for its money, yet we apparently can't get enough of them.

Let's start with Deadlock: Given the fact that it's an honest-to-god new Valve game, it's shocking it hasn't just clinched number one by default. But it's a kookster: The second most wishlisted game on Steam is already being played for free by tens of thousands of people⁠—about 45k at the time of writing, according to SteamDB.

The game is not out, but we're already at a point where lapsed players can have discussions about whether or not to come back to it. Before Deadlock's playtest broke containment, it became the gaming story of the moment despite Valve pretending it didn't even exist.

At the beginning of Summer 2024 (this thing's been around for over a year!), screenshots, gameplay footage, and even datamined information was leaking out of the then-secret playtest like a sieve. Valve finally "announced" the game⁠—really just acknowledged it⁠—last August, and the vast proliferation of invites to the invite-only game has effectively soft-launched it.

That might be the most confounding fact of all: Valve invented the early access model, but won't brand its own, effectively early access game as such. If I'm being honest, I kind of love the chaos of it all, even as I wish the studio would finally tackle a singleplayer game again.

Subnautica subpoena

The number one wishlisted Subnautica 2 has a more familiar, but also troubling story: A falling out and legal clash between senior creative and managerial staff behind the game, one that doesn't seem likely to resolve in time for Subnautica 2's projected 2026 early access release.

Studio Unknown Worlds was acquired by publisher Krafton in 2021, and a sequel to the developer's beloved underwater survival sim, Subnautica, was slated to launch in early access this year. In July, Krafton replaced the senior leadership of the studio: CEO Ted Gill, designer Charlie Cleveland, and co-founder Max McGuire.

The ousted developers say they were terminated unfairly in order to duck paying them a $250 million bonus, and that the game could have still launched in early access this year. Krafton claims the trio dropped the ball, that Subnautica 2 was far behind its agreed-upon early access launch milestones, and that going through with the planned release would have been disastrous.

More than anything, I'm just struck by the anti-charisma of these games and some of their immediate predecessors at the top of the list. A messy lawsuit for Subnautica and a messy not-launch for Deadlock. Silksong gave fans nothing but stony silence for years, and The Day Before seems to have gotten there on accident, much to the detriment of developer Amazing Seasun.

Manor Lords and Stray, while having far less abnormal pre-launches, are still far from traditional blockbusters in character: A hardcore city builder and a moody, meditative indie platformer.

Classico triple-A juggernauts like Borderlands 4 and Battlefield 6 can still make it up there, but that kind of pedigree and budgetary heft isn't the guarantee of success and popularity it used to be. It's of a piece with so many of the biggest games in recent years being surprises⁠—Baldur's Gate 3, Balatro, Helldivers 2, REPO, Palworld⁠—and so many old guard publishers like EA and Ubisoft falling on hard times.

Aside from just making a good game and hoping it catches on, nobody seems to have cracked the code for getting people excited about a new release these days. Most devs can't just pull a Silksong and say absolutely nothing while a memetic legend spontaneously develops around their project.

The legal dispute between Krafton and the former heads of Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds took an unexpected turn today as Unknown Worlds—not Krafton, but Unknown Worlds specifically—has sued its former bosses for abandoning their responsibilities to the studio and Subnautica 2, breaching their employee agreements by stealing confidential materials prior to their dismissal, and damaging the reputation of the studio and the next Subnautica game.

The broad strokes of the matter are already pretty well known: The former heads of Unknown Worlds—Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland, CEO Ted Gill, and studio co-founder Max McGuire—accuse Krafton of sabotaging and intentionally delaying Subnautica 2 in order to avoid paying a $250 million earnout to the studio, while Krafton insists Subnautica 2 is nowhere near ready for release, even in early access, but that the trio were determined to push ahead with it anyway, even though doing so risks turning it into another Kerbal Space Program 2.

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."

For the most part, this lawsuit looks like a pretty typical courtroom counter-punch, but the fact that it comes from Unknown Worlds and not Krafton, the parent company and central player in everything that's happened so far, struck me as odd: Why would Krafton not file its own action, in its own name, against the former Unknown Worlds bosses?

"Unknown Worlds is the legal entity directly harmed by the former executives’ misconduct," a Krafton representative told PC Gamer in an email. "While Krafton is the parent company, the contracts, intellectual property and confidential information at issue belong to Unknown Worlds. The defendants were executive leadership at Unknown Worlds, and their obligations, including confidentiality and fiduciary duties, were owed to that entity."

While undoubtedly technically accurate, I still wonder about the value, and frankly the point, of the distinction, and whether Krafton is maybe hoping to engender a sort of "even their own studio is against them" feeling among observers. Unknown Worlds is wholly owned by Krafton, after all, and so any harm suffered by the studio is suffered by Krafton as well. It also seems likely that Krafton has some hand in directing this lawsuit: Richards, Layton, and Finger, the law firm representing Unknown Worlds in this lawsuit, also represents parent company Krafton.

The Unknown Worlds lawsuit is demanding the return of all materials taken by its three principals, as well as an order awarding it "all rights, title, and interests" in any properties they developed during their employment "including but not limited to all movie scripts, movie footage, game design, game code, playtests, or other software development," plus damages and legal fees.

Subnautica 2 has become one of the year's most talked-about games, albeit for reasons I don't think anybody wanted. A big legal brouhaha has developed in the wake of publisher Krafton abruptly dismissing the entire leadership team of Subnautica 2's developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment.

Those former leaders, including co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, subsequently filed a lawsuit, claiming Krafton wanted to push Subnautica 2's launch out of 2025 to avoid a big financial payout. Krafton responded by claiming Subnautica 2 wasn't ready for an early access launch, and that Cleveland and McGuire "abandoned their roles as studio-wide game director and technical director to focus on their personal projects".

It's all very messy and unpleasant, with Unknown Worlds caught in the middle of it all as it continues to work on the sequel. And not just the sequel, apparently, as the original game and its spinoff Below Zero have quietly received new patches.

Both updates focus primarily on making small but significant fixes to the available Subnautica adventures. Subnautica's 2025 patch adds proper controller support for most of the standard gamepads from the last few console generations, as well as reworked input options for non-keyboard players.

Alongside this, it stops your PRAWN suit from falling through the map when returning through the game's alien arch portals, and fixes an issue where Leviathans had "a tendency to fly above the ocean surface when grabbing the Seamoth or PRAWN suit", which frankly sounds like a feature, not a bug.

Below Zero's 2025 patch, meanwhile, focuses mainly on the Snowfox, a sci-fi skidoo used for traversing the game's icy landmasses. The Snowfox was always the most difficult Subnautica vehicle to control, and the patch makes several changes to address this.

For starters, it alters the Snowfox's collider to reduce the chance of it getting stuck on obstacles. But it also dramatically reduces the damage received from terrain impacts from 100% to 12%, and lessens the chance of players being knocked off the Snowfox when attacked by an ice worm from 100% to 25%.

Oh, and it stops the vehicle from "occasionally falling inside the terrain and disappearing forever when deploying it", though some players may have been relieved when this happened, given how finicky it could be to drive.

Finally, both patches add a "pop-up newsfeed that can be used for one-time-only announcements", which I'm guessing will keep existing Subnautica players updated on the sequel's ongoing development. The games are also on chunky discounts for the next week— each 75% off from $30 (£26) to $7.50 (£6.50).

As someone who played both Subnautica games to death, I can say that they're well worth that price. Subnautica is the superior experience, with bigger biomes, better aquatic vehicles, and a more rounded adventure overall.

That said, I think Below Zero has some wonderful environments and creatures, as well as an incredible soundtrack by Ben Prunty. As for Subnautica 2, it's now set to release into early access sometime in 2026, though Krafton is being no more specific than that at this point.

Krafton has filed a response to the lawsuit brought against it by the former heads of Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds, accusing them of almost immediately abandoning their responsibilities following Krafton's acquisition of the studio despite repeated efforts to keep them onboard. The publisher is requesting an outright dismissal of the lawsuit filed against it and all claims for relief, along with legal fees and other costs.

The dispute between Krafton and the former leadership of Unknown Worlds—co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, and studio CEO Ted Gill—came to public light in July when the trio were dismissed, but Krafton's filing points to problems going back almost to the very beginning. Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill "were presented to Krafton as the visionaries behind Unknown Worlds' success and the key to its future," it says, and so Krafton put a lot of money into keeping them around: $500 million to buy the studio, plus up to $250 million more if "they led the successful development of Subnautica 2 and other games and hit an ambitious revenue target in four consecutive quarters before June 2026."

That payout is the crux of the beef: The former Unknown Worlds bosses accuse Krafton of delaying Subnautica 2 in order to avoid that payout, but Krafton says the game simply wasn't ready for release, even in early access, in large part because the studio heads let their attention wander to other things following their big paydays. Krafton went deeper into those claims in today's filing.

"Having sold the company, Cleveland and McGuire, who pocketed almost $200 million apiece from the sale, and Gill, who received $60 million, quickly lost interest in development Subnautica 2," Krafton's formal response to the lawsuit states. "Cleveland and McGuire abandoned their roles as studio-wide game director and technical director to focus on their personal projects and quit making games for Unknown Worlds entirely. And Gill, who remained, focused on leveraging his operational control to maximum the earnout payment, rather than develop a successful game.

"By July of 2023, Cleveland and McGuire's absence at Unknown Worlds had begun to impact the Subnautica 2 development team. The development director at Unknown Worlds told Gill that 'folks think ... Max and Charlie are checked out as studio heads and are confused as to why.' In reality, Cleveland had abandoned videogames to pursue filmmaking, a process he documented publicly on his website and on social media.

"For his part, McGuire started 'working on initiatives that fall outside of [the company's] main development activities,' stating that his priority was to 'try something that feels personally meaningful to me.' Gill remained as Unknown Worlds' president and CEO. But without the original creators, Subnautica 2 suffered serial developmental delays under his watch."

Krafton claims that problems with Subnautica 2 came to light in an internal assessment in March 2024, but rather than getting down to work, studio leadership "blamed others and overhauled the team," and "continued to reduce the scope of the game" as the release continued to be delayed. By the spring of 2025, Krafton felt the game was still far from ready for early access: The suit says CEO Changhan Kim worried that Subnautica 2 could end up like Kerbal Space Program 2, causing "irreversible harm to the entire IP franchise."

"As Unknown Worlds' sole stockholder, Krafton had invested $500 million in the success of not only Subnautica 2, but also Subnautica 3, Subnautica 4, and any other future Subnautica franchise product," the filing states. "To prevent the key employees from permanently damaging Unknown Worlds' most valuable IP, the company itself, and its goodwill with its fans, and following conduct by the key employees that plainly gave rise to termination for cause, Krafton terminated the key employees, consistent with the terms of both their employment agreements and the EPA."

The bulk of the response is a line-by-line answer to the lawsuit filed by the former Unknown Worlds bosses, which gets into painfully tedious detail: Regarding the very first sentence in the very first paragraph of the lawsuit, for instance, Krafton acknowledges acquiring Unknown Worlds but denies the claim that the studio was "wildly successful." It's all very lawyerly, in other words, but the net result is a legally comprehensive restating of the defense Krafton has put up all along: Subnautica 2 isn't ready for the light of day, and the former Unknown Worlds bosses were willing to put it out anyway just to collect a cheque.

"We believe the facts speak for themselves," the company said in a separate statement. "This answer reflects our commitment to protecting both the Subnautica IP and the global community that has supported it for years."

This is usually the point at which the lawyers close the doors and get to work on hammering out some sort of agreement ahead of a trial, a process that can take months or years to conclude and is typically done in silence—in other words, we may not be hearing much more about this dispute until it's over. As for Subnautica 2, it doesn't have a new early access release date at this point, but is now not expected to be out until sometime in 2026.

As someone who typically takes a rather unga bunga approach to videogames, I must admit I finally feel rather seen by Subnautica 2 designer Anthony Gallegos proclaiming that we're all monkey-brained gamers who love survival crafting because of how they tap into our most primal instincts.

As reported by GamesRadar, Gallegos sat down with Edge magazine to talk about Unknown Worlds' upcoming game—which is currently going through a bit of a moment after publisher Krafton gutted the studio's top brass, delayed the game into 2026, and now face a lawsuit at the hands of the studio's co-founders—and what it is about survival games that keep people coming back even as the genre continues to swell and shift priorities.

"I used to work at this one Marvel studio, and we had some coworkers that would occasionally bring their kids to work," Gallegos said. "I was watching this little kid play [Astroneer] and I was like, 'Oh, geez, good luck, kid, that game has no onboarding.' I came back two hours later, and he had made a base that was leaps and bounds above anything I could have fathomed for myself. I was like, 'OK, either this kid's a genius, or survival game mechanics are just simple enough that they're universally approachable.'"

Considering a 10-year-old can build a better Minecraft house than me, I'd wager it's probably both, but Gallegos says that ultimately survival games successfully tap into the silly primitive parts of our brain: "We're all little monkeys," he starts. "Everyone's little monkey brains like shelter and food."

I mean, hey, true. I certainly enjoy having a roof over my head, and anyone who's spent more than five minutes in my vicinity knows how much I love a snack or a sweet treat. I also thoroughly enjoy a good survival game, so I reckon Gallegos is pretty on the money here.

He also says that, similarly to MMOs, people who dabble in survival games are generally pretty down for trying out multiple different ones. "If I see people play through all the content of Subnautica and then they leave for a little bit until we do a content patch, that doesn't alarm me, because I know what they're doing. They just move from one to [another] with their friends, or by themselves. But they play them all."

Gallegos also points out an increasing priority being placed on more multiplayer or social elements, and that the genre has largely begun to shift away from an unforgiving fight for your life into something with a little less friction.

I definitely see that—I don't remember the last time I watched my meticulously-created village burn to the ground before me, or suffered a death that catastrophically altered the trajectory of my save file. I do wonder if part of that does come with how game-hoppy the genre can be. I've lost count of how my times my pals have prodded and poked each other into buying a brand-new survival game, rinsed it for a week and then never touched it again. That sort of in-and-out playstyle doesn't exactly lend itself to challengingly complex systems, after all.

And hey, like Gallegos said, at the end of the day we're all just little monkeys. And this little monkey prefers her survival games to be easier on the ol' noggin. I'm already duking it out in real life, let me hit sticks into something vaguely axe-shaped in peace.

July was an ugly month for Subnautica 2 and developer Unknown Worlds. In the course of fewer than 30 days, the studio's leadership was gutted, the anticipated early access release was delayed, harsh words were exchanged, and a lawsuit was filed. The dispute turns largely on whether or not Subnautica 2 is ready for early access release: The ousted leaders of Unknown Worlds insist it is, but Krafton says it needs more content and polish before it's ready to see the light of day.

It's obviously not an ideal situation, but during the company's Q2 FY2025 earnings call, Krafton said its willingness to delay the game amidst all the furor is actually a good sign because it proves the company's commitment to getting it right.

"I do fully understand that from the outside, you may think that because there's talk of legal proceedings of Subnautica 2 and it being delayed, that could make you think that maybe within Krafton, our milestone process is being mismanaged," Krafton chief financial officer Dongkeun Bae said in response to a question about whether the game had become "too burdensome" to be properly managed.

But while he claimed to understand that reasoning, he also said that viewing the game's development as mismanaged reflects something of a "reasoning gap," because the steps Krafton has taken over the past month "actually represent that things are effectively being managed."

"[The] Subnautica IP basically has this big follower base, big fandom base," Bae said. "So as long as we market it and we release it into the market, people would say that a certain level of sales from this title would be guaranteed. But what we are seeking to do is, we want to make sure that we satisfy the highest level of satisfaction that the gamers have, their aspirations.

"And so because we've managed the whole milestone process very rigorously within the company, we were able to make the decision that we made regarding Subnautica 2. And because we felt that the game was not up to par, not up to the level that we had wished it to be—I think that case really goes to show that our milestone process is being rigorously managed."

There's some logic to that I suppose, although managing a milestone system isn't the same as leading the development of a game. Whether or not a project is ready for an early access release is also a big, very opinion-driven question: If there's one thing we learned from Baldur's Gate 3, after all, it's that being short on content and long on jank isn't necessarily the kiss of death.

And really, we saw the same thing with Subnautica, a game that presented as "underwater Minecraft" when we first saw it in early 2015 and came out the other end as a memorable journey to "beautiful and terrifying depths" three years later. I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes at Krafton but I do know that Unknown Worlds put out an absolute banger with Subnautica, through early access warts and all, and my inclination would be to trust them to do it again with the sequel.

Of course, Krafton has good cause to claim that it knows what it's doing, too: The company said the first half of its 2025 fiscal year was its best H1 ever, with revenues up nearly 12% to 1.536 trillion Korean won ($1.1 billion), and operating profit increasing 9.5% to 703.3 billion won ($505 million). The company attributed the growth to a strong mobile business driven by Battlegrounds Mobile India and the continued success of PUBG: Battlegrounds.

Fans of action RPG Last Epoch are understandably worried about today's news that the studio behind it has been acquired by the publisher that's currently being sued by a group of recently-ousted Subnautica 2 developers.

Judd Cobler, founder of Eleventh Hour Games, said there's nothing to worry about in a series of posts on the Last Epoch forum.

"We’re aware of the situation with [Subnautica 2 developer] Unknown Worlds," Cobler wrote in a reply underneath the announcement of the acquisition. "I don't want to comment on it directly but after understanding it more deeply it isn't something that concerns us entering into the partnership at all."

Cobler is referring to the recent dispute between Krafton and the former studio heads of Unknown Worlds who claim they were fired earlier this month to help the publisher seize control of the company, delay Subnautica 2's 2025 early access release, and avoid having to make a promised $250 million payout.

In a statement sent to the press, Krafton alleges that the developers "abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them," and left the game in an unreleasable state. It delayed the game into 2026 and says it's "committed to fair and equitable compensation for all remaining Unknown Worlds employees who have continuously and tirelessly contributed to Subnautica 2’s development."

With the news of Krafton buying Eleventh Hour Games coming out as the dispute continues to unfold, Last Epoch fans on Reddit and the game's forums are concerned about what might happen.

"Krafton isn't looking to change us," Cobler said in another reply to a fan skeptical of what the buyout could mean for the studio's future. He added that, while looking for a buyer, it was the only publisher that was "the most aligned in the mission and enabling us."

Last Epoch, an action RPG that sits somewhere between the complexity of Path of Exile and the simplicity of Diablo, launched last year after a successful Kickstarter and early access period on Steam. Its third season, Beneath Ancient Skies, is set to drop next month.

In the announcement post, Cobler said the partnership with Krafton will allow the developer to "deliver things we've only dreamed of previously," and that it will be "hiring many roles in the near future."

The timing of the news is certainly not ideal and Cobler's comments are fairly boilerplate, but some fans are jumping to very big conclusions rather quickly. That said, the skepticism seems warranted and I imagine people will be watching Eleventh Hour Games' decisions like a hawk as it grows over the next year or so.

As promised last week, the ousted founders of Subnautica 2 studio Unknown Worlds have filed a lawsuit against publisher Krafton, effectively accusing the company of sabotaging the game in an effort to avoid paying a $250 million earnout—and, when that failed, of seizing control of the company outright.

Subnautica was a major hit, and Subnautica 2 appears set to follow in those footsteps, with nearly 2.5 million wishlists on Steam alone and positive responses to playtests. This, the suit alleges, was actually a problem for Krafton.

"It eventually wants the game to drive revenue," the suit states. "But a blockbuster [redacted] launch—squarely within the earnout period—would likely trigger the $250 million earnout to the studio's former owners and employees." The suit further claims that Krafton CEO Changhan Kim told Unknown Worlds leadership that an early access release within the planned 2025 window "would have been disastrous" for the company.

(Multiple references to the original, unannounced 2025 launch target are made in the suit, but redacted as above. Krafton delayed the early access release after firing the studio heads.)

That $250 million payout has been at the center of the dispute between Krafton and the fired Unknown Worlds heads: Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland, CEO Ted Gill, and co-founder Max McGuire. Krafton justified the firings with the claim that Subnautica 2's development has been struggling, and that replacing studio leadership "will bring renewed energy and momentum" to the project.

A week later, details of the massive payout that would result from a successful 2025 Subnautica 2 launch came to light, and when Krafton confirmed Subnautica 2's delay into 2026, it denied that financial considerations played a role in the decision. The next day, things got nasty: Krafton accused Cleveland and co. of effectively abandoning Subnautica 2 prior to being fired, shortly after which Cleveland repeated his insistence that the game is ready for early access release, and promised a lawsuit incoming. And here we are.

The allegations made in this lawsuit are as explosive and ugly as the claims made by Krafton against the former Unknown Worlds leaders. It alleges that troubles began earlier this year, after Krafton leadership reviewed "conservative" financial projections for the studio provided by Gill: The seeming likelihood that the $250 million earnout would be triggered led Krafton to push for a delay of Subnautica 2, the suit claims, and to begin looking for opportunities to terminate the studio founders if they refused.

Beginning in mid-April, "Krafton began a months-long campaign designed to delay Subnautica 2's launch and avoid the earnout," the lawsuit states, including assigning it to a new publishing team in Korea whose vice-president didn't speak English, and pulling resources and services including asset creation—trailers, influencer kits, an audio series, and a cover story with PC Gamer magazine—as well as localization, analytics, and legal support. (PC Gamer can confirm that a planned Subnautica 2 cover story was cancelled.)

"If this were not enough, Krafton then took aim at harming Unknown Worlds’ relationship with its fan community," the suit states. "It seized control of unknownworlds.com and subnautica.com and posted—without consulting the Founders or obtaining their approval—a statement apologizing for Subnautica taking 'far longer than any of us ever intended' and making allegations about Cleveland and McGuire's alleged roles."

Krafton "escalated its intimidation campaign" in June, according to the filing, by accusing the Unknown Worlds founders of failing to fulfill their contractual duties and using "lowball pressure tactics" to get them to accept a lower payout than stipulated in their contract; when the studio founders refused, Krafton threatened to take operational control of Unknown Worlds. After further negotiations in June failed to make headway, that's what happened.

"In short, Krafton flagrantly breached both the letter and the spirit of the promises at the very core of its agreement to purchase Unknown Worlds," the lawsuit states. "It promised to leave creative and operational control in the hands of the Founders. Promise broken. It promised to consult with the Founders before taking any action that could harm the earnout. Promise broken. It promised not to take any action with the primary business purpose of frustrating the earnout. Promise broken. And it promised not to terminate the Founders without Cause. Promise broken."

That's really the core of the Unknown Worlds' founders complaint: That Krafton meddled in the development of Subnautica 2, took control of Unknown Worlds, and ultimately fired the founders without cause, all in breach of the 2021 Equity Purchase Agreement that saw Krafton acquire the studio. For that, the founders are seeking the full $250 million payout, plus interest and legal fees, as well as an order restoring them to their positions at Unknown Worlds and returning control of the studio to them.

"It’s unfortunate we are here in this situation but we’re doing everything we can to make things right for everyone," Cleveland, the designer and director of Subnautica, wrote in a message posted to Reddit that also includes a link to the full lawsuit. "Openness and transparency is my thing so we’re glad to bring this truth to light."

In a statement provided to PC Gamer, a Krafton spokesperson said the publisher's decisions regarding the game "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," the spokesperson said. "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. In the meantime, Krafton remains focused on what matters: delivering the best possible game as quickly as possible to Subnautica’s fans."

In a statement to PC Gamer, Krafton has confirmed the legitimacy of a leaked Subnautica 2 development assessment previously reported on by Kotaku. The Krafton development analysis "recommended to enhance the content volume and level of polish before launching."

The delay of Subnautica 2 has been the primary driver of the dispute between former Unknown Worlds senior leadership Charlie Cleveland, Ted Gill, and Max McGuire, and mega-publisher Krafton, which purchased the studio back in 2021.

The two slides come from an internal presentation showing Krafton's analysis of Subnautica 2's development status as of May 2025. "While the game includes a variety of content, it currently lacks the freshness and volume expected of a sequel," reads a summary on the first page.

On the second slide, Krafton lists five major features Subnautica 2 was lacking in its 2025 build vs. its target early access launch specifications set in 2023: Two fewer biomes, one less leviathan, a missing vehicle, a removed game mode, and "one narrative delayed, with about six hours of content cut."

"Compared to the originally planned EA launch specifications, the current target content volume has been reduced or adjusted across various elements such as biomes, creatures, equipment/progression, and features," reads part of Krafton's assessment. "Due to a gap between the current state and the content volume assumed during the initial launch planning, it is necessary to reassess the release timeline and roadmap."

"The document that has been circulating on social media and reported by various outlets is indeed part of an internal milestone review conducted as part of the Subnautica 2 project," Krafton wrote in its statement to PC Gamer. "Milestone reviews are conducted regularly in collaboration with Krafton's creative studios across all projects. These reviews help assess development progress, define clear objectives, and ensure that each project aligns with Krafton's standards in both creativity and quality."

This evidence from Subnautica 2's development definitely muddies the waters and lends some credence to Krafton's narrative. It seems clear that the delay and expulsion of Cleveland, Gill, and McGuire was not just a way to get out of paying a promised $250 million bonus to the studio.

In the (since-deleted) r/pcgaming post calling for a boycott of Subnautica 2 over the firings, the poster and some commenters surmised that Unknown Worlds' ousted devs were the ones who wanted more time on the game and that Krafton was pushing to hit the original release window, when the opposite is clearly true. Unknown Worlds co-founder Charlie Cleveland wrote last week that "We know that the game is ready for early access release and we know you’re ready to play it."

At the same time, Krafton internal development metrics are not a stone tablet handed down by god: It's certainly possible that what Krafton perceived as a lack of progress was reasonable rescoping by Unknown Worlds, and that this adjustment could have been made up for during the early access period. Absent more word from the rank and file at Unknown Worlds or actual access to the game, we can't know for sure.

Things are getting ugly between Krafton and its ousted developers. The publisher took the pretty unprecedented step of singling Cleveland, Gill, and McGuire out, saying that "We feel a profound sense of betrayal by their failure to honor the trust placed in them," arguing that they "abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them," and accusing Cleveland in particular of choosing to prioritize a "personal film project" over Subnautica 2's development. Meanwhile, Cleveland has stated that the three have filed a lawsuit against Krafton.

As a great lover of Disco Elysium who's had to report on that fallout for years now, all I can say to Subnautica fans is: First time?

The spat between recently fired Unknown Worlds founders and publisher Krafton has gotten messier, with studio co-founder Charlie Cleveland confirming on Reddit that a lawsuit has been filed against Krafton.

Cleveland's update follows a statement issued by Krafton earlier today. The publisher claimed that the former Subnautica 2 bosses—specifically Cleveland and fellow co-founder Max McGuire—had "abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them", namely, the development of Subnautica 2. It also claimed that the game's Early Access build, which was scheduled to release imminently, "falls short in terms of content volume".

"We are deeply disappointed by the former leadership's conduct," Krafton's statement read, "and above all, we feel a profound sense of betrayal by their failure to honor the trust placed in them by our fans". The tone of this statement is ruthless, to say the least, and quite different to Krafton's initial missive, which maintained a vague corporate impassivity, while extending gratitude to the sacked leaders.

In his own statement, Cleveland repeats his claim that Subnautica 2 is ready for Early Access—which Krafton has denied—before confirming the lawsuit.

"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."

Cleveland also addresses the elephant in the room: the $250 million bonus which was to be rewarded to Unknown Worlds upon reaching certain revenue milestones by the end of 2025, with 90 percent of that figure going to "the three former executives", according to Krafton. Previous rumors had suggested that the sackings and Subnautica 2's delay was a tactic on Krafton's part to avoid paying out this amount, but the publisher suggested in today's statement that "fair and equitable compensation" would be granted to remaining Unknown Worlds employees.

Cleveland writes that it was never the leadership's intention to keep the 90 percent. "As for the earnout," he writes, "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."

The saga continues then, and it appears to be turning into a protracted one. Specific details of the lawsuit have yet to emerge, but Cleveland implies we'll be hearing more about that soon.

Here's his full statement:

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

The cold war of words between Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton and the recently ousted leadership of developer Unknown Worlds got very hot today as Krafton issued a statement accusing the former studio heads of effectively abandoning the project, resulting in "repeated confusion in direction and significant delays in the overall project schedule."

Krafton, best known as the publisher of PUBG, acquired Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds in 2021 for $500 million. In addition to that, Krafton put another $250 million in "earn-out compensation" on the table—essentially bonuses for achieving certain targets or milestones—90% of which were allocated to Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland, CEO Ted Gill, and co-founder Max McGuire, the studio heads who were fired earlier this month, "with the expectation that they would demonstrate leadership and active involvement in the development of Subnautica 2."

"However, regrettably, the former leadership abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them," Krafton wrote. "Subnautica 2 was originally planned for an early access launch in early 2024, but the timeline has since been significantly delayed. Krafton made multiple requests to Charlie and Max to resume their roles as Game Director and Technical Director, respectively, but both declined to do so.

In particular, following the failure of Moonbreaker, Krafton asked Charlie to devote himself to the development of Subnautica 2. However, instead of participating in the game development, he chose to focus on a personal film project."

Krafton said Subnautica 2 development has suffered from "repeated confusion in direction and significant delays in the overall project schedule," which it pinned on an "absence of core leadership" at Unknown Worlds. It also says the current version of the game "falls short of content volume," which is what forced the recently confirmed delay into 2026.

"We are deeply disappointed by the former leadership’s conduct," Krafton wrote, "and above all, we feel a profound sense of betrayal by their failure to honor the trust placed in them by our fans."

That's a shockingly harsh thing to say in a corporate press release, and effectively confirms serious behind-the-scenes beef over Subnautica 2 that's previously only been hinted at. Krafton said when the Unknown Worlds bosses were shown the door that incoming CEO Steve Papoutsis, formerly the head of Callisto Protocol developer Striking Distance Studios, would "bring renewed energy and momentum" to the project; it later promised that "the team that has been working on the game day-to-day over the last few years remains completely unchanged," obliquely suggesting that Cleveland, Gill, and McGuire had not been working on it regularly.

Shortly thereafter, Cleveland defended the work on Subnautica 2, saying that the game in its current state "is ready for early access release." Nonetheless, a delay into 2026 was announced a few days later; there was some speculation that Krafton pushed the release in order to avoid that $250 million payout, but the publisher said the decision "was not influenced by any contractual or financial considerations."

Krafton also seemed to promise some sort of makeup for that missed bonus payout in today's statement, saying it has "committed to fair and equitable compensation for all remaining Unknown Worlds employees who have continuously and tirelessly contributed to Subnautica 2’s development. We believe that the dedication and effort of this team are at the very heart of Subnautica’s ongoing evolution, and we reaffirm our commitment to provide the rewards they were promised."

What exactly that works out to remains to be seen: A Bloomberg report said the dismissed studio leadership had planned to share the full $250 million bonus with all of the estimated 100 employees at Unknown Worlds, which could mean a massive reduction in payouts if Krafton only allocates the 10% they were originally due to get. A Krafton spokesperson said further details on that will be revealed in the future.

The statement has touched off some back-and-forth on the Subnautica subreddit, where some are inclined to accept Krafton's explanation (Subnautica 2 has been a long time coming, after all) and others standing behind the former Unknown Worlds leaders who headed up the first Subnautica, which was nothing short of brilliant. For now, though, only two things are certain: Bad blood is boiling, and it's not likely to be over anytime soon.

Original story: Just a week after gutting the leadership of Subnautica 2 studio Unknown Worlds, a Bloomberg report says Krafton is going to delay the game's early access release into 2026. The decision comes mere months before the PUBG publisher was slated to pay Unknown Worlds a $250 million bonus that developers say hinged on Subnautica 2's release this year.

Krafton acquired Unknown Worlds in 2021, three years after the hit undersea survival game Subnautica left early access and went into full release. The purchase agreement, according to Bloomberg, included the $250 million bonus, payable if the studio achieved specific revenue targets by the end of 2025; with Subnautica 2 delayed into 2026, those targets are unlikely to be met, and thus the bonus will not be payable.

Unknown Worlds leadership had reportedly planned to split the bonus with all of the studio's roughly 100 employees, payouts worth hundreds of thousands or even millions for some. Those leaders—Subnautica designer and director Charlie Cleveland, CEO Ted Gill, and studio co-founder Max McGuire—were unexpectedly shown the door last week, however.

The report adds a new dimension to a recent statement made by Cleveland, who said earlier this week that Subnautica 2 "is ready for early access release." Speaking to Unknown Worlds employees during a town hall also held this week, however, newly installed CEO Steve Papoutsis, formerly the CEO of Krafton's Striking Distance Studios, insisted otherwise, and said Subnautica 2 is being held back so developers can add more content.

When asked during that town hall whether the delay was made so Krafton could avoid paying the bonus, Papoutsis said he's not familiar with the specifics of its deal to acquire Unknown Worlds, but that "it’s never been told to me that we’re making this change specifically to impact any earnout or anything like that."

Last week, Krafton gutted the leadership level of Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds, and in a notably robust press release said that studio needed "renewed energy and leadership" to deliver the long-awaited Subnautica 2. The fan reaction was generally speaking one of total dismay, so much so that Unknown Worlds released an open letter over the weekend asking for patience, and trying to reassure fans that key team members were still in place.

Now, Unknown Worlds co-founder and designer/director of Subnautica, Charlie Cleveland, has taken it upon himself to share with the game's fans what happened behind-the-scenes: and reassure them about the state of Subnautica 2.

Cleveland's post is titled "What is a Wave but a Thousand Drops?" It begins by recalling the halcyon days of youth, when he and his high school friends in Burlington, Vermont, would spend the summers trying and failing to make games: until 1996, "when just two of us worked through the fall and got our first game playable: an underwater (!) Star Control II clone called Aquarium Fighter [...] I instantly became hooked. Hooked on making games. Hooked on making not-fun-things (but with potential), fun."

Cleveland reflects on how much the industry has changed over nearly three decades, and the "brutal" realities of making money in the current era. He says he started Unknown Worlds "without realizing it" by creating the Half-Life mod Natural Selection.

Way before it was more common, the 'studio' operated a remote model and the unusual business practice of "ask[ing] the community to send me $20 bills in the mail so I could keep working on the game, and you did. $18k was a tough salary to live off of, but I made it work and loved every moment of it. Like a design hook, but I was hooked on design. So hooked that I spent 10 years making the sequel."

Cleveland says none of this would've happened without co-founder Max McGuire, and Natural Selection 2 "made just enough money to get Subnautica into a stripped-down early access, which allowed us to find the fun… the community helped guide us forward until we found something we all loved. Something we loved to make and something that millions loved to play. There's no way it would've been as successful if we had waited until v1.0 before releasing it to the public."

But it wasn't all plain sailing, with Cleveland saying "one of our games failed because we thought we knew better" than the process they'd followed with Subnautica. I think he's referring to 2022's Moonbreaker here, which he directed, and "fewer people played that game than even that humble Half-Life mod [...] it really wounded me and I needed time to heal. Sometimes it feels like I’ll never get over that one."

Then we get to Subnautica 2. "Many of the folks that started the journey with us nearly 20 years ago have worked hard on Subnautica 2, and they're joined by some incredible new talent who were drawn to the studio by their love of the games and their passion for the way we've made them," says Cleveland. "We know (and love) that the expectations for this sequel are high. But the team has poured their hearts into the game and their dedication really shows.

"So you can see why for Max, Ted, myself, the Unknown Worlds team, and for our community, the events of this week have been quite a shock. We know that the game is ready for early access release and we know you’re ready to play it. And while we thought this was going to be our decision to make, at least for now, that decision is in Krafton’s hands. And after all these years, to find that I’m no longer able to work at the company I started stings."

As noted above, Krafton's press release announcing the departures was unusually forthright, and it certainly didn't seem like any love was lost. Cleveland doesn't outright say it, but the news being "quite a shock" certainly suggests that the trio were pushed rather than jumping: and it's especially weird that he regards Subnautica 2 as "ready" for release (it was scheduled for a 2025 release, though it's unclear if it will release this year).

You'd think the guy who created and directed Subnautica would have a good sense of where the sequel was. I've asked Krafton for comment on Cleveland's statement, and on Subnautica 2's release date situation, and will update with any response.

"I want you to know that whatever happens to the founders, to the team and to the game, our priority is, and has always been, to make the best damned game we can for the best community in the world," ends Cleveland. "With your Gorge plushies and your hand-drawn fish fan-art, and yes, your hard-earned dollars, you've supported us in every way, in every season, cold and warm, since Half-Life modding was even a thing.

"And I also want you to know that this is not where the story ends."

Developer Unknown Worlds has shared a letter asking for patience from Subnautica fans after publisher Krafton announced the departure of its senior leadership⁠—including studio co-founder Max McGuire⁠—and the installation of Dead Space producer and Striking Distance (The Callisto Protocol) CEO, Steve Papoutsis, as the new studio head.

The news prompted a backlash from fans, including a popular post calling for a boycott of the upcoming Subnautica 2 on the PC gaming subreddit. We don't know what prompted the removal of Unknown Worlds designer/director Charlie Cleveland, CEO Ted Gill, and co-founder Max McGuire.

Beneath the boilerplate language of Krafton's original announcement are references to "development momentum," as well as the publisher's "milestones" and "development metrics." Boycott post author PeterRockLife cites this as a main concern, interpreting it as Krafton punishing developers who were taking their time.

If it's actually an instance of a team spinning its wheels and failing to make progress, the studio and publisher haven't convincingly made the case. But leaving aside specific theories of what happened, opinion on Reddit and the Steam discussions for Subnautica 2 definitely favors the departed devs, and I don't see Unknown Worlds' letter winning back hearts and minds.

It's largely lacking in substantive information or argument. An update to Subnautica's early access timeline is "coming soon"—it's hard to imagine it hitting its 2025 early access launch window at this rate. The letter does not mention Cleveland, Gill, or McGuire by name, nor does it elaborate on why they were shuffled out.

The letter does firmly deny that the game will be live serviceified or otherwise experience a monetization change. I haven't seen concerns about this specifically regarding Subnautica 2, but such tactics are an understandable ambient gamer bête noire, one the largely mobile gaming-focused Krafton clearly wanted to get ahead of.

The most persuasive part of the letter, to my eye, concerns the remainder of the dev team that hasn't left the project:

"The team that has been working on the game day-to-day over the last few years remains completely unchanged. That team includes veterans of the Subnautica series, dating back to the earliest days of the original Subnautica, to the many incredible and talented developers who came aboard to help us bring our vision for Subnautica 2 to life."

Unknown Worlds and Krafton have an uphill battle winning back fan sentiment regardless. As for the leadership shakeup, I suspect we'll hear more about the circumstances behind it with time.