Following publisher Krafton’s recent clashes with Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds over the release of Subnautica 2, a new report indicates that the company has pushed back the schedule for the revenue target that the studio needed to hit for its employees to get a $25 million bonus. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier, the bonus, valued at $25 million, was supposed to go out to the around 40 employees at Unknown Worlds if revenue targets were reached by the end of 2025.
According to the report, Krafton’s deal with Unknown Worlds involved the option for the publisher to push back the bonus already, with the employees being afraid that the revenue targets that were set for the studio were not possible to hit. This target had become even harder for Unknown Worlds to hit following the delay of the planned Subnautica 2 Early Access launch this year. The publisher has also said that the studio would be getting a portion of its projected 2026 profit-sharing bonus pool, completely independent of the $25 million bonus, this year.
The clashes between Krafton and Unknown Worlds came to light following the publisher saying that Subnautica 2’s Early Access launch was pushed back because of an “absence of core leadership” at the studio. The publisher has said that the three studio co-founders–Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire–had “abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them.”
“Subnautica 2 was originally planned for an Early Access launch in early 2024, but the timeline has since been significantly delayed,” said Krafton.
In response to this, the three co-founders have announced that they have filed lawsuit against Krafton, and that more details about the publisher’s $500 million acquisition of the studio, as well as the three co-founders’ $250 million compensation that was part of the acquisition, will be revealed.
“We’ve now filed a lawsuit against Krafton: the details should eventually become (at least mostly) public – you all deserve the full story,” wrote Cleveland on social media. “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.”
More recently, a document was leaked that revealed that, if Subnautica 2 were to be released as an Early Access release this year, it wouldn’t have some of the planned features. This means that the game would have had fewer creatures, the lack of custom game modes, fewer vehicles, and two entire biomes missing. In a statement, Krafton has confirmed that the document was real.
The publisher has stated that the document is part of a series of “internal milestone reviews” that are conducted regularly to allow Krafton to “assess development progress”. The company has also stated that it plans on working closely with the developer to get Subnautica 2 ready for release, and that the core team working on the game is “completely unchanged”.
For more details about the clashes between Krafton and Unknown Worlds, check out our full coverage.