Unknown Worldsâ Subnautica 2 is due to release into early access soon, which makes the news that its development teamâs bosses have just been apparently ousted even more shocking. Charlie Cleveland, the director and lead programmer on the original Subnautica, is gone, along with Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill and co-founder Max McGuire.
Subnautica was an extraordinary success from a smaller studio, a stunning survival and crafting game set under the sea of an alien planet. However, it wasnât really the âindieâ project it sometimes appeared, given that by this point the development studio was majority owned by Chinese publisher Perfect World, based on a valuation of around $3.5 million. In 2019, a year after the release of Subnautica, Perfect World sold off most of its shares, and in 2021 the studio was bought outright by Korean developer Krafton (publishers of mega-hits PUGB and InZoi), which at the time said it would allow Unknown Worlds to continue to operate independently. Clearly, that has now changed.
In a press release put out July 2, Krafton declared that long-time game producer Steve Papoutsis (The Callisto Protocol, Dead Space) has been brought in to be the new CEO of Unknown Worlds, with a goal to âprioritize development momentum and delivering best possible fan experience for [the] long-anticipated Subnautica 2 launch.â
Krafton states that Papoutsis is replacing all three members of the original leadership team, âeffective immediately.â The rather combative tone continues:
While KRAFTON sought to keep the Unknown Worldsâ co-founders and original creators of the Subnautica series involved in the gameâs development, the company wishes them well on their next endeavors.
Not so much reading between the lines as just reading the lines themselves, this gives the impression that Krafton had enough of how long the sequel to the 2018 game was taking, and so fired the companyâs founders. Weâve reached out to find out if this is the case. The news has clearly come in fast, given at the time of writing, Ted Gillâs X account still states âCEO of @UnknownWorlds.â
This time pressure is stressed over and over, including in this statement from Kraftonâs CEO, CH Kim. âThere is nothing more important than the gamer experience,â he begins. âGiven the anticipation around Subnautica 2, we owe our players nothing less than the best possible game, as soon as possible.â Thereâs nothing more important. The statement then goes on to seemingly just outright chastise the previous team, lecturing the reader:
As part of its oversight, KRAFTON is committed to achieving regular milestones to assess progress across its creative studios. These reviews, based on clearly defined metrics and targets, will help ensure that games meet both creative and quality standards. This process is essential to delivering the right game at the right time. Unknown Worldsâ new leadership fully supports this process and is committed to meeting player expectations.
It really is quite something. And thatâs fewer than half the times the same press release reiterates the importance of timely development. Itâs astonishingly passive-aggressive.
My guessâand I stress Iâm guessingâis that Cleveland et al would have been pushing for a delay before the early access release, and Krafton drew a line in the sand. Which, if true, would be all the more interesting given this isnât a game thatâs publicly slipped; it was initially announced as a 2025 release, and no one would have batted an eye if it was made known it was now sliding into 2026. Itâd be fascinating to learn the internal situation thatâs led to this apparent coup dâĂ©tat.
Subnautica was a sublime game (albeit with its own controversial firings), and will be a hard act to follow. Rumors that the sequel was going to be a multiplayer live-service thing caused a ferocious response, rapidly quashed by Unknown Worlds. Hopefully weâll still get a chance to play a not-quite-finished version of the game via early access some time this year.
