Subnautica 2 is finally nearing an early access release, but it’s the legal battle and ongoing drama between publisher Krafton and studio Unknown Worlds that has been getting most of the attention since founder Charlie Cleveland and CEO Ted Gill were let go last summer.
According to the former studio bosses, Krafton was looking for ways to avoid paying Unknown Worlds’ devs bonuses based on a targets the studio was set to hit. After some legal back and forth, a judge ruled last month Krafton had to reinstate CEO of Unknown Worlds Ted Gill. The publisher “respectfully” disagreed with the ruling but said it was exploring a new path forward while focusing on “delivering the best possible game to Subnautica’s fans.” Days later, Gill claimed Krafton pushed to “leak” a May release window without consulting him.
This whole saga is far from over, but a recent change on the game’s Steam page that has been just been picked up by industry figures suggests a big shift could be announced in the coming days or weeks. At the time of writing, Krafton is no longer listed as the publisher of Subnautica 2. Instead, as per the listing, it looks like Unknown Worlds Entertainment will be self-publishing the title.
The internal changes, which added a number of tags and categories to the game’s page while also removing Krafton’s involvement, happened on 7th April according to SteamDB, meaning this isn’t a recent slip-up, either (and that, for example, there would have been ample time to correct this listing if it was made in error). We don’t have the picture of what’s happened behind the scenes yet, but the change was made a week ago and hasn’t been rolled back since.
Eurogamer has reached out to Krafton for comment.
