Krafton has filed a response to the lawsuit brought against it by the former heads of Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds, accusing them of almost immediately abandoning their responsibilities following Krafton's acquisition of the studio despite repeated efforts to keep them onboard. The publisher is requesting an outright dismissal of the lawsuit filed against it and all claims for relief, along with legal fees and other costs.
The dispute between Krafton and the former leadership of Unknown Worlds—co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, and studio CEO Ted Gill—came to public light in July when the trio were dismissed, but Krafton's filing points to problems going back almost to the very beginning. Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill "were presented to Krafton as the visionaries behind Unknown Worlds' success and the key to its future," it says, and so Krafton put a lot of money into keeping them around: $500 million to buy the studio, plus up to $250 million more if "they led the successful development of Subnautica 2 and other games and hit an ambitious revenue target in four consecutive quarters before June 2026."
