Subnautica 2 Publisher Says It Fired Cofounders To Avoid Another Kerbal Space Program 2 Debacle

"We wanted a fresh new debacle instead!"

Edit:

"As Unknown Worlds’ sole stockholder, Krafton had invested $500 million in the success of not only Subnautica 2, but also Subnautica 3, Subnautica 4, and any other future Subnautica franchise product.”

Ew. Survival games benefit more than most genres from iteration, but that's better done as updates and expansions unless they make a truly qualitative leap, which I doubt will happen under their leadership. This reeks of them wanting to pump out as many full-priced titles as possible, probably with an ever-higher price tag as Subnautica becomes an established IP.

Factorio did it right, IMO. V2.0 as a free update to the base game, launch a paid expansion at the same time.
Wube is pretty much the only developer I have faith in to consistently do things right.
- Rimworld keeps me buying every couple years with absolutely killer DLC that enhances the game just right. And yeah you can get most of those features for free with mods, but first party support is always welcome.
- A lot of indie devs are good about that. Squad, KSP's original devs, even mandated to their buyer that all DLCs existing and future had to be free for backers since they'd listed that as a promise on their original Kickstarter.
- i should buy that game
I agree, but Subnautica was more about exploration than just survival. Sure, you could keep expanding the world to add new environments, but eventually that gets out of hand. For a Subnautica type game, making new ones makes sense, especially to address tech debt as well and start fresh.
Subnautica isn't just a survival game, but a story driven game as well, and given how janky their engine was, it's not a surprise that they'd want to overhaul it from the ground up.
- Their engine? It was built on Unity.
“We wanted a fresh new debacle instead!”
"Whenever I have a problem I throw a molatov cocktail and it and bam! Different problem."
Jason Mendoza
Survival games benefit more than most genres from iteration
Subnautica is as much of a survival game as Minecraft is. The only 'survival' happens in the first 5-10 minutes of the game and never again.
- Vintage Story player?
- It's not a survival game unless you get mauled by wolves in the first 10 minutes.
  VS players represent.
- Yeah, "survival" is about as watered down a term as "roguelike", especially when it's "survival-crafting" (a meaningless distinction - crafting mechanics were popularized by survival games in the first place). I play and enjoy both casual and hardcore survival games, though I have to shut my brain off not to get annoyed at some of the former.
  There's a recent trend in the genre where eating isn't required for survival, food just gives temporary stat bonuses. At least Subnautica has proper hunger and thirst mechanics, even if you're set for life for both within the first hour.
  I can count the games that get the survival gameplay loop right on one hand. Hardcore survival is a sadly neglected niche.

In a lawsuit filed last month, the cofounders claimed Krafton tried to sabotage Subnautica 2‘s planned Early Access launch this year to avoid paying a $250 million bonus it had agreed to at the time Unknown Worlds was sold if the studio hit certain revenue targets in 2025 and early 2026. The legal complaint alleged that Krafton violated the terms of the deal by overriding the studio’s independence and firing the cofounders without cause.

In its response filed on August 12, Krafton denies most of the allegations in the original complaint and argues that it was the cofounders who were trying to rush Subnautica 2 out into the wild despite being behind on its expected content scope. When the company tried to enlist the cofounders, who were not directly involved in the game’s development, to get it back on track, it says it was rebuffed. Krafton claims it had no choice but to remove them from the studio in order to protect Subnautica 2 and prevent a disastrous launch.

“We made a deal in which they had to successfully launch the game and get a big payment when they hit certain revenue targets, but we had to fire them because they only wanted the money for which they had to make a good game, they didn’t wanted to make a good game, they were in only for the money, for which - again - they had to make a good game, they were clearly sabotaging the game!”

They are so full of shite. Corporate BS 101.

I genuinely don't know what about your comment is supposed to be mocking.
You're just describing the situation presented in purposefully more confusing language than the article.
- They rephrased Krafton's BS corporate speech into the plain English meaning. It's only confusing because what Krafton is claiming is asinine.

So from what I understand. That 250$ million bonus to "employees" was almost all going to like 3 people. The smaller bonus that was going to actual employees, they said they would honor it anyways.

I'm happy those three founders gave us the first subnautica, but I'd rather a better game on release then something rushed so they get a payday (they also already got paid when they sold their company in any case).

Really hard to say who is in the right without having gameplay footage or real details, but it wouldn't surprise me if it does need more time and it was going to come out as a mess.

Well first, this deal was part of that sale. That'd be like someone's boss pocketing a tip and telling the waitress "you don't deserve this tip you already got paid" or a salesman "you get something hourly, why would you need this commission?"
They worked for it, after the sale, because it was in their contract.
That said, the company didn't even say it was a mess. They said that they needed something like, one more biome, one more leviathan, a few bits and bobs like that. Requirements that they added on later in development, that those three guys say aren't needed.
I really wanna hear from the other devs, the ones under the 3. Theirs is the opinion I'd trust in this mess. But I'm leaning towards corporate fuckery, personally.
- Krafton has claimed they asked for 30% more content for the early access version, which isn't that minimal.
- It's a lot of money. There are huge incentives on both sides to do the wrong thing (either delay a finished game or push out something half baked).
  That being said, the current course of action, regardless of justification, is actually going to get us a better game in the end. So there is a sunny side to it for the consumer, which is kind of really rare when you think about it.
  I would also love to hear from other workers.
When two parties sign a contract then they have to act in good faith. Preventing the other party from fulfilling their obligations to avoid a payout or invoke a penalty is not good faith. And that's why the sea witch Ursula's contract with the mermaid Ariel would not have held up in court.
Maybe the game would make more money during it's life span if released later but that's irrelevant when there's a contract about how much money the game should make before a certain cut off date.
- We currently don't know which party is acting in bad faith. The publishers could be delaying to avoid the payout or the 3 founders could be rushing to get the payout. It's true that a shit half baked game would ruin the series and cause damages, if there is an actual lack of content, there is justification in delaying it.
  I guess we will get a clearer picture as the lawsuits draw to a close and the game is released.
Yeah, the three fired heads owned 90% of the shares, so they got $225M from the initial sale, and were due to get another $225M from the bonuses. That's why Krafton still paid out $25M in bonuses after the uproar.

Krafton, past named Bluehole Studio, has a terrible track record from the start, stealing Lineage's source code to make Tera Online.

They've also bought up a ton of quality studios. I'm half expecting Krafton to go bankrupt due to incompetence and end up pulling an Embracer and take everyone else down with them.
If they end up torpedoing Hi-Fi Rush 2, I may start a riot.

I'll wait and see.

It's quite weird , any top game today gets close to 100 copy's within a few months of a hit yet subnautica wasn't copied even 1 time not even shoddy.

It's weird I just want more subnautica like games. Under sea crafting survival with some mystery.

There's lots of copies, they just are kinda crap so no one talks about them.
- Which ones honestly ?

Don't care, show me good gameplay and good reviews, then I'll consider buying it.

Why are games nowadays 99% careful wording, business decisions and clout, and 1% game?

That's what happens if MBAs run the show.

500m?! What a buch of fucking assholes and idiots.

Also, what drama?

For those who needed some news catching up also:
https://www.ign.com/articles/take-two-shutters-kerbal-space-program-2-studio-amid-layoffs
The publisher, Take Two, laid off the entire staff of KSP2. This pissed off many fans, who had paid full price for Early Access to an unfinishee game that now didn't have a Dev team.
https://www.polygon.com/news/475635/private-division-sold/
Then T2 sold off the studio to this other company. And staffing up for Dev work when none if the original creators are around: 1. Sucks and is miserable work and 2. Almost never works out to produce a quality product.
So yeah, instead of that debacle, they opted for the Disco Elysium 2 debacle where the publishers steal the IP from the original creators and then fail to ever deliver anything with it. I love this debacle because you get a shitty publisher with a disappointing game AND embittered developers who will probably leave game making or go on to make less involved projects. It's great they can both financially ruin an industry with bad practices while also tearing out the soul of the medium.

I believe them as far as I can throw them tbh. These guys also bought Last Epoch so they better watch themselves before they get a 2nd game's community mad at them.