Unknown Worlds has delayed Subnautica 2 to next year, to “give the development team more time” to implement community feedback.
As reported by Eurogamer, the studio’s parent company Krafton clarified the decision was made “prior to recent leadership changes” last week.
Krafton said the delay was “based solely on [its] commitment to quality and to delivering the best possible experience for players” and not “influenced by any contractual or financial considerations”.
This comes after Bloomberg reviewed a purchase agreement that allegedly stated a $250 million bonus was planned if the studio “hit certain revenue targets” by the end of this year.
Sources told the publication that the former leadership team “planned to share the additional money with all of the studios’ employees”.
They also claimed that “staff who were at the company at the time of [Krafton’s] acquisition were told they were eligible for bonuses ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to seven figures”.
Unknown World’s new CEO Steve Papoutsis addressed these issues in a company town hall, also reviewed by Bloomberg.
“The desire of Krafton is to have the very best version of Subnautica 2 available for its early access,” said Papoutsis. “While yes, the software that everybody worked on is in a great spot and felt like, ‘Hey, we should launch this,’ that wasn’t where both parties aligned around.”
As for the purchase agreement, Papotusis reportedly said he wasn’t “familiar with the specifics of the contract” and said that it had “never been told to me that we’re making this change specifically to impact any earnout or anything like that”.
Earlier this week, former Unknown Worlds creative director and co-founder Charlie Cleveland spoke about his sudden exit from the company, describing it as “quite a shock”.
“After all these years, to find that I’m no longer able to work at the company I started stings,” wrote Cleveland. He departed with CEO Ted Gill and CTO and co-founder Max McGuire.
He also stated that Subnautica 2 was “ready for early access release”, and thought the decision to release the game “was going to be [his and the team’s] decision to make” but “that decision is in Krafton’s hands”.