It's been only two days since a judge from the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware ruled that Unknown Worlds founder and CEO Ted Gill should be reinstated to his position, after being ousted alongside fellow founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire in an alleged attempt from parent company KRAFTON to avoid paying a massive up to $250 million earnout connected to the early access launch of Subnautica 2.
The judge found that the three Unknown Worlds founders had settled on an August 14, 2025 early access launch date, and KRAFTON stopped the launch in a desperate attempt to prevent the earnout from triggering. Among the provisions decided in this "Phase One" of the lawsuit was the restoration of Gill's access to the Steam platform to allow the game's launch.
Yesterday, the studio, through a message shared internally by Steve Papoutsis (who had joined from Striking Distance Studios as the new studio head after KRAFTON kicked out the original founders) and reported by IGN, confirmed that Subnautica 2 is launching in two months:
Over the past nine months, you have worked incredibly hard to bring Subnautica 2 close to the finish line. That effort has resulted in a game we are truly proud of, one that each of us and our partners at KRAFTON unanimously determined is ready for Early Access release in May. Thanks to your dedication and talent, we've added more story chapters, built new creatures, and created new biomes, along with many other features. With this significant progress, we have passed KRAFTON's milestone review last week and are now ready to start our open development journey alongside our community. We have full confidence that we have reached a point where we can deliver an experience our players will love.
Papoutsis also mentions that he looked forward to working with Ted Gill and to making the transition "as smooth as possible" while finally delivering the game into the hands of fans who have been waiting a long time. The Subnautica series, comprised of the original game launched in 2018 and the 2021 spin-off Below Zero, has already sold over 18.5 million units, and that was before the recent launch of both games on Nintendo Switch 2.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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