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Krafton blasts Subnautica’s leaders at Unknown Worlds for abandoning project (updated)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Krafton took a PR hit this week as it announced that it had replaced the leadership of its Unknown Worlds studio and pushed back the launch of Subnautica 2 to 2026. Allegations surfaced that it made the move to avoid a $250 million payout to the former leaders.

But today, Krafton hit back hard at those leaders: cofounders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, and CEO Ted Gill, who were replaced last week. Steve Papoutsis of Striking Distance Studios, another Krafton property, was named the new CEO at the time.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.