'Subnautica' Players Organize Boycott Of Sequel After Krafton Axes Leadership Team
Subnautica players have organized a boycott of Subnautica 2 after South Korean conglomerate Krafton axed the leadership team.
In a blog post earlier this month, Krafton announced that Steve Papoutsis had been appointed the CEO of its its subsidiary and Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds. He previously was the CEO at Striking Distance Studios, the developer of the Callisto Protocol.
Along with announcing Papoutsis as the new CEO, Krafton also revealed that he replaced the previous leadership team of Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire. Krafton stated, “While KRAFTON sought to keep the Unknown Worlds’ co-founders and original creators of the Subnautica series involved in the game’s development, the company wishes them well on their next endeavors.”
It’s unclear exactly why the original leadership team was removed, but the blog post hints that it might have to do with Krafton imposing a new review process, “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 Worlds’ new leadership fully supports this process and is committed to meeting player expectations.”
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Two days after seemingly being fired by Krafton, Cleveland shared a lengthy post to X, where he shared in part, “So you can see why for Max, Ted, myself, the Unknown Worlds team, and for our community, the events of this week have been quite a shock. We know that the game is ready for early access release and we know you’re ready to play it. And while we thought this was going to be our decision to make, at least for now, that decision is in Krafton’s hands. And after all these years, to find that I’m no longer able to work at the company I started stings.”
However, just a week after Krafton axed the Unknown Worlds leadership team, the company announced that Subnautica 2 would not arrive to Steam Early Access until 2026. The developer shared that after a series of playtests it discovered there were “a few areas where we needed to improve before launching the first version Subnautica 2 to the world. Our community is at the heart of how we develop, so we want to give ourselves a little extra time to respond to more of that feedback before releasing the game into Early Access. With that in mind, we’ve made the decision to delay Subnautica 2’s Early Access release to 2026.”
Additionally, Unknown Worlds added, “Now that Subnautica 2 is coming out in 2026, we’ll be able to add more biomes, more vehicle upgrades, additional tools, expand on our story, and include more creatures to discover.”
Following all of this, a report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier would claim that the delay was not necessarily to add the aforementioned features, but because Krafton wanted to avoid paying a $250 million bonus to the development team.
Schreier claimed, “The sequel’s delay was against the wishes of the studio’s former leadership, according to the people. The $250 million bonus was due to kick in if Unknown Worlds hit certain revenue targets by the end of 2025, according to the purchase agreement, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. By delaying Subnautica 2 into next year, the company is unlikely to hit those targets and therefore the employees may not be eligible for the payout, the people said.”
He went on to claim that newly appointed CEO Steve Papoutsis was asked about whether or not the delay was to avoid paying the $250 million bonus during an employee town hall. He responded, “It’s a good question, and I would appreciate patience on this particular topic.” He also added that he specifics of the potential bonuses were “beyond my current understanding at the moment.”
“The desire of Krafton is to have the very best version of Subnautica 2 available for its early access,” he added. “While yes, the software that everybody worked on is in a great spot and it felt like, ‘Hey we should launch this,’ that wasn’t where both parties aligned around.”
Additionally, he stated, “It’s never been told to me that we’re making this change specifically to impact any earnout or anything like that.”
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Following these announcements and the report, Subnautica players have called for a boycott on the game’s subreddit. A post from Specialist-Target461 declares, “DO NOT BUY SUBNAUTICA 2.”
It explains, “The Publisher, KRAFTON, has FIRED all 3 original founders of UNKNOWN WORLDS. And DELAYED the game to 2026 so that devs wouldn’t receive 250 million in bonuses. Do not support these shady business practices. Do not buy Subnautica 2.”
On the game’s Steam forums there are multiple threads about people announcing they do not plan to play the sequel and have removed the game from their wishlist.
What do you make of Subnautica players boycotting the sequel?
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Krafton did a good thing for once, these same bigwigs didn't show even half as much decency to their own staff. They booted our lad Simon Chylinski for political wrongthink and are so woke all around that they may never go to sleep. With them gone, Subnautica 2 cannot possibly be any worse than Below Zero, named after the amount of copies it would have sold in a just industry.
This is what they deserve for selling out to a big publisher. Also this developer has been on my blacklist ever since they fired their composer for his support of Trump.