Fired Unknown Worlds execs withdraw claim that Krafton violated court order by announcing Subnautica 2 release date
Fired Unknown Worlds executives Max McGuire and Charlie Cleveland, as well as reinstated CEO Ted Gill, asked the Delaware State Court of Chancery to toss out a motion where they claimed Krafton violated the court's order by announcing the Subnautica 2 early access release date.
A lawyer for the three executives wrote in a letter to Delaware State Court of Chancery vice chancellor Lori Will, filed Wednesday and obtained by Game Developer, they "no longer contend that Krafton violated the Court's March 16, 2026 opinion"—a reversal of its accusations that Krafton leaked the Subnautica 2 early access release date to IGN without Gill's approval.
McGuire, Cleveland, and McGill had their side of things—that Krafton schemed to sabotage the Subnautica 2 early access timeline to avoid paying $250 million in payouts—affirmed by the court in March, when vice chancellor Lori Will found Krafton illegally fired Gill to take over the Subnautica 2 studio. Gill was reinstated, but his two colleagues were not. Shortly after the court decision was made, Krafton and Unknown Worlds said in a letter published by IGN that Subnautica 2 would be released into early access in May. The letter was signed by Steve Papoutsis, who took over Unknown Worlds after Gill was originally fired. The three executives immediately filed documents with the court in which they argued Krafton should be sanctioned for violating the court order; Gill should be in charge of making such announcements.
"Krafton self-servingly announced the launch without any regard to its impact on the game, the team, or the community—let alone this Courts Opinion," lawyers wrote in the March filing.
Lawyers for the executives have continued to file in support of sanctions since then, including a letter from Gill himself, filed later in March but made public in the court docket on April 1, that he's slowly been regaining access to Unknown Worlds' systems.
"I was extremely dismayed to learn from these communications that Krafton had rushed to leak the timeline of the launch after the Opinion came out," Gill wrote. "A successful Early Access launch requires careful planning and preparation to foster authentic fan participation and support—as the Unknown Worlds' team's work reflects. Krafton's decision to make the announcement itself, in the manner that it did, was not in line with best practices and may well undermine the Subnautica 2 launch."
Krafton argued, in its own filing on March 22, that it disagreed. Krafton didn't violate anything. Papoutsis, Krafton's lawyers said, was just expressing excitement for the milestones Subnautica 2 had reached, and was welcoming Gill back to the company. The filing did not address allegations, made by Unknown Worlds lawyers in March, that the company leaked the document to IGN.
In the Wednesday filing, the Unknown Worlds executives' lawyer asked the court to cancel an evidentiary hearing regarding the sanction motion from the calendar, and to "consider all pending requests for sanctions in the case as moot." Game Developer has reached out to the three plaintiffs and Krafton for comment.
Though Gill was reinstated and this matter was resolved, the lawsuit is far from over. The court broke its decision-making into two parts; the first was largely found in the executives favor, affirming their version of events. The next part of the court case will determine if Krafton's actions mean the executives will be awarded damages for the company's actions.
