Charlie Cleveland and his fellow Unknown Worlds co-founders have released the public text of their Subnautica 2 lawsuit, and it comes just as publisher Krafton reportedly extends its employee bonus period to cover 2026.
As a quick reminder, Krafton, which is the parent company of Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds, recently delayed Subnautica 2‘s Early Access release into 2026. The announcement of the game’s delay was made shortly after original Unknown Worlds founders Cleveland, Max McGuire, and Ted Gill were ousted from the company.
In response to their ousting and Subnautica 2‘s delay, Cleveland and his fellow co-founders pledged to sue Krafton, claiming not only that the game was ready for Early Access but also that Krafton delayed it in order to avoid paying out a potentially large bonus to employees if a 2025 revenue target was met.
Now, Cleveland has once again taken to social media in order to release a redacted public version of the lawsuit against Krafton. It’s a lengthy legal document, but in essence, Cleveland, Gill, and McGuire are suing Krafton for breach of contract with specific reference to the payout.
The three are alleging that Krafton deliberately delayed Subnautica 2 in order to avoid paying $25 million of a $250 million bonus to Unknown Worlds employees, and that this is also why the three were dismissed from their positions at Unknown Worlds.
In a move that might muddy the waters somewhat, however, Krafton is reportedly extending the bonus payout window to cover 2026, and it’s also apparently planning to advance part of the 2026 bonus pool to employees by the end of 2025.
If this move goes ahead, it sounds to me like it might invalidate a large part of Cleveland’s claim, although I’m not a legal expert. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next, but as many lawsuits do, this process may well drag on for a while yet.
As for Subnautica 2 itself, it’s currently due for launch on PC and Xbox Series X|S sometime next year. Of course, there’s every chance it could be delayed until 2027, in which case the aforementioned bonus extension would cease to matter, but that’s too far in the future for us to meaningfully speculate on.
