The current number one wishlisted game in the world was announced on April 30th to come out on the 14th of May. Subnautica is considered an excellent game, with most review sites giving it a 10/10, including Steam. Now the highly anticipated sequel, Subnautica 2, is releasing this month.
The game has skyrocketed to the top of Steam’s wishlists chart during November due to controversy, with claims saying Krafton (the parent company of Unknown worlds) intentionally delayed the game to avoid paying a 250 million bonus to the developers of Subnautica 2, Unknown Worlds.
Unknown Worlds was promised a 250 million bonus if it reached a specific revenue milestone. Kotaku states, “If Unknown Worlds surpasses a revenue threshold of $69.8 million, Krafton must pay $3.12 for each additional dollar of revenue generated, up to the $250 million cap.”
To avoid paying the Unknown Worlds development team, Krafton decided to fire Ted Gill (The current CEO of Unknown Worlds), Charlie Clevland (the Game Director), and Max McGuire (the Technical Director). Krafton accused the founders of Unknown Worlds, Ted Gill, Charlie Clevland, and Max McGuire of “Project abandonment” and “Lack of leadership.”
According to Gameindustry.biz, Krafton stated that following the failure of Unknown Worlds’ other title, MoonBreaker, the founders (specifically Charlie Clevland) chose to focus on personal film projects rather than Subnautica 2.
Krafton also claimed that they had made several requests for the co-founders to return to their roles as game director and technical director, but they declined.
The court case that concluded in March, with the judges ruling in favor of Unknown Worlds, saying that Krafton’s reason for firing was a pretext to avoid paying the 250 million bonus. Findings show that Krafton executives, including the CEO, forced a takeover to avoid financial obligations, even using AI to plan the strategy, according to Delaware.gov.
As a result of the court case, the Former CEO, Ted Gill, was reinstated, and Unknown Worlds was given full permission over Subnautica 2‘s early access and its release date. Unknown worlds were also given an extension to the 250 million bonus. The period of time was extended to November 15th, 2026, to make up for the time lost while the Founders were out of the studio.
Now that the former CEO of Unknown Worlds has been reinstated, and the deadline has been extended, it is very likely that the studio will be able to reach the profit required to earn the 250 million bonus. There is no known information about the former Game Director (Charlie Clevland) or the former Technical Director (Max McGuire), and whether they will be reinstated like Ted Gill.
I am personally eager to finally get my hands on Subnautica 2 with my friends and once again explore the vibrant universe of Subnautica. The game is planned to be released on Steam and Epic Games for PC. It is also planned to be on the Xbox Series X/S. There is no known information on whether or not the game will release to PS5 as of May 7th, 2026. The current planned price of Subnautica 2 is 30$ on launch.
