The run-up to Subnautica 2's early access launch was defined by legal action and hangups with Unknown Worlds owner Krafton, which certainly appeared desperate to avoid a $250 million payout contingent on the sequel hitting certain sales milestones. Now that the game is finally out following the court-ordered reinstatement of CEO Ted Gill, and absolutely smashing it on PC and Xbox, we all get to see if and when Krafton has to pay that bonus.
Valve veteran Chet Faliszek, now at The Anacrusis developer Stray Bombay, hits this on the head in a new YouTube video. Faliszek stresses that he won't be playing Subnautica 2 himself because the first game just didn't click for him (I won't be playing it because I hate deep water), but observes that "half a million people are playing it right now." Indeed, Subnautica 2 peaked at 467,582 concurrent players on Steam alone.
