Following months of internal issues between developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment (UWE) and publisher Krafton, Subnautica 2 has been released to the public and has quickly broken records for Steam player count. Many immediately believed Krafton would pay out a previously agreed-upon $250 million earnout to UWE, and now it has reportedly agreed to do just that.
Since its early access launch on May 14, Subnautica 2 has reportedly sold 4 million copies, but it was not certain it would make it to a proper early access release. In Summer 2025, Krafton released UWE CEO Ted Gill, alongside other senior staff members, and delayed the game itself. What followed was a very public lawsuit where Krafton reportedly used ChatGPT to attempt to get out of the $250m earnout agreement and claimed UWE was undermining/undercutting Subnautica 2, with those at UWE pushing back against all of this.
The second update for the second Subnautica is here, introducing fish behavior changes, more resources, and tweaks to the game's controversial EULA.
Now, with Subnautica 2's launch potentially bigger than it could have been at one point, Krafton has reportedly agreed to pay the earn (according to IGN and South Korean business reports)....
