Just before the start of Early Access, the name Krafton quietly disappeared from Subnautica 2’s Steam page. Instead of the South Korean giant that acquired Unknown Worlds Entertainment back in 2021, the developer studio itself now appears as the publisher. For a project with a AAA-level indie budget and the expectations of millions of fans, this move is, frankly, unexpected.
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Who was the first to notice the publisher change, and when did it happen?
Marketing specialist Michael Futter discovered the change, posting the discovery on his microblog. Ironically, the switch itself, according to SteamDB logs, occurred a week earlier. It’s just that no one noticed. Subnautica 2 cards were then updated on both the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store. Essentially, Unknown Worlds quietly switched the entire project to self-publishing across three platforms at once. By comparison, the last time a similar “divorce” between a publisher and studio on the brink of release occurred was with Hideo Kojima and Konami in 2015, although the scale is certainly incomparable.
Legal Disputes: Ted Gill, Krafton, and the Fight for Control of Unknown Worlds
Behind the scenes, there’s a real corporate drama going on. A court ruling has ordered Krafton to return control of Unknown Worlds Entertainment and the rights to Subnautica 2 to fired president Ted Gill. Despite this, current studio head Steve Papoutsis has already announced a May Early Access launch. Gill’s lawyers, as far as we know, have considered this move a gross violation of court orders. And here’s the interesting thing: Krafton still formally owns the studio, meaning the legal status of self-publishing is highly questionable. No one can predict whether all this confusion will affect the release date or content.
What is known about Subnautica 2: platforms, engine, and co-op play
The original Subnautica, which debuted in 2018, sold over 5 million copies in its first few years and earned a Metacritic score of 87. The underwater survival horror’s cult status seems undisputed. The announcement of a sequel in 2023 has sent the gaming community into overdrive. Subnautica 2 is now being prepared for release on PC (Steam, Epic Games, Microsoft Store), Xbox Series X and S, and Game Pass. Among the promised features: full-fledged four-player co-op, a fresh alien planet with unexplored biomes, deep-sea nightmares larger than the original’s leviathans, Unreal Engine 5 visuals, and Russian text localization. You’ll agree, it’s an impressive package. The only thing left to figure out is who exactly will publish it.
