Thursday, March 19th 2026
Reinstated Unknown Worlds CEO Bashes Leaked Subnautica 2 May Early Access Launch Memo
It was recently revealed that Krafton was forced to reinstate Ted Gill, the formerly ousted CEO of Unknown Worlds, after a court ruling found that he was terminated without cause and improperly seized operational control of Unknown Worlds. Around the same time as that news broke, Steve Paputsis, Krafton's replacement for Ted Gill at Unknown Worlds, announced that Subnautica 2 was ready for a May Early Access launch in an internal memo that was subsequently leaked to IGN. Now, as reported by The Game File, Gill's lawyers have claimed that Papoutsis did not have the authority to send out that memo, since he was no longer in charge of Unknown Worlds at the time.
The legal team also speculated that the memo had been intentionally leaked to the press, since Unknown Worlds has yet to make an official public statement about the launch of Subnautica 2, effectively killing a lot of the game's momentum by damping the fanfare and marketing efforts that would usually go into such a big launch. In 2025, following the ousting of the original founders and executives at Unknown Worlds, It was alleged that Krafton was pushing to delay the launch of Subnautica in order to avoid paying the studio staff a $250 million bonus for launching the game on-time. Ultimately, Krafton ended up delaying Subnautica 2 to 2026, claiming that it needed "a little extra time" to respond to community feedback before the game launched.
Source:
The Game File
The legal team also speculated that the memo had been intentionally leaked to the press, since Unknown Worlds has yet to make an official public statement about the launch of Subnautica 2, effectively killing a lot of the game's momentum by damping the fanfare and marketing efforts that would usually go into such a big launch. In 2025, following the ousting of the original founders and executives at Unknown Worlds, It was alleged that Krafton was pushing to delay the launch of Subnautica in order to avoid paying the studio staff a $250 million bonus for launching the game on-time. Ultimately, Krafton ended up delaying Subnautica 2 to 2026, claiming that it needed "a little extra time" to respond to community feedback before the game launched.
16 Comments on Reinstated Unknown Worlds CEO Bashes Leaked Subnautica 2 May Early Access Launch Memo
I hope Unknown Worlds' founders win their bonus. And I really hope they distribute the bulk of it to the studio staff as promised.
that seems like a weird thing to put in a contract that you will get that much more to ship "on time"
I could understand a small bonus if it's quicker, but that amount of $ would invite devs to rush through and push it out "as is"
Conversely, the Unknown Worlds founders painted a $250M target on their backs and maybe should have asked for more gradation in their bonus payout.
Corporations get away with a lot of crap as if they are more important than the people that work for them. They actually toast and butter their bread for Krafton, since the game should sell unless it's trash and has terrible early access sales.