Always good to let this kind of drama develop for a couple weeks before passing any judgement. Not to say I fully believe the publisher's narrative either. But maybe it's not the time for grandiose proclamations of a boycott yet.
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Gaming nowadays is always about being patient, whether its a pre order or controversy.
This also applies to the internet in general tbh
Things are getting spicy. According to Krafton, the executive devs that they fired had abandoned the project after receiving the payout for selling the company and were focusing on other things.
See also: Subnautica 2 devs are now suing Krafton
This is shockingly "public" considering there's legal proceedings now.
Thats right, but on the other hand they were pushed into making a statement because everybody is attacking them online.
There is also the possibility,like always, that both sides are assholes, btw.
However, instead of participating in the game development, he chose to focus on a personal film project.
My assumption is that Krafton expected the leads to put in 12 hour days 7 days a week to meet ridiculous expectations and the leads took some vacation time or something along those lines. That would match up with common publisher behavior, especially the ones that trash people publicly.
My assumption is that Krafton expected the leads to put in 12 hour days 7 days a week to meet ridiculous expectations and the leads took some vacation time or something along those lines.
This is from the lead himself, on his movie production website:
I’m Charlie Cleveland and I’ve been designing video games for over 25 years. I founded Unknown Worlds and built games like Natural Selection, Natural Selection 2, Subnautica and Moonbreaker. I absolutely love making games but wanted to try something new.
At the end of 2023, I left San Francisco after almost 20 years and moved to Los Angeles to reset my life. Instead of taking it easy, I now find myself working on multiple film projects. It’s amazing how fast it’s all happening - being right in the thick of things makes it so much easier to meet like-minded people!
Also, according to this link, he's taking a break from making video games, for at least a couple of months now, before all this stuff was out.
It might not be as one-sided as you think. But right now it's he said, she said, so nobody really knows.
Early release was supposed to be in 2024. We have halfway through 2025.
Lead devs have said the game is ready for early release, so they are likely taking a break from a game they feel is being delayed by the publisher. The publisher is whining about expectations, not obligations or anything along those lines.
I'm with the devs on this one, project burnout is real.
The leads allegedly also were looking to gain $225 Million dollars (supposedly 90% of a $250 Million bonus), so of course they are saying the game is ready.
Charlie Cleveland did say they were going to split the bonus with the team, but imma be honest, why not put that into writing? Why take that huge cut in the first place, and then trust that the leads are going to do the right thing.
I don't think at this point you can really be sure of anything. Since the former leads have said they've filed a lawsuit (but not for what they're suing), it'll most likely come out at one point.
The publisher delaying the game would allow them to keep the $225 million so of course they are going to say it isn't ready.
See how this works?
The devs rushing the game out half added results in them getting $225M. So they have incentive to be shitty too. I don't know enough about any of them to say which is more likely but that logic goes both ways.
Yes. That's why I said nobody really knows at this point, except the people involved.
it's he said, she said, so nobody really knows.
Sounds like they both said he took time off from gaming to make films.
I mean the former leads (or at least one of them) say the game was ready for Early Access, the publisher says it wasn't. This could be the deciding factor if the studio gets the bonus or not.
Although today the publisher said some previously leaked slides were real, that show how the potential EA release fell way behind schedule over the years and would have been pretty bare-bones and that a delay would have made sense.
To be fair, they didn't trash anyone publicly until they basically had to.
They did not have any reason to personally attack the leads except out of spite, and odds are high that doing so will only anger the player base towards the publisher.
Trashing the devs was a terrible idea, and what they wrote was clearly petty and spiteful.
They did not have any reason to personally attack the leads except out of spite,
Lol what the honest fuck are you talking about?
They were facing a boycott because it seemed like they fired the original creators to avoid paying the employees.
They could have issued a statement saying that they would still pay the remaining employees and everyone would assume that they still fired the creators out of greed reasons. If the creators actually didn't do their jobs, then they would want to make it clear that they are the ones actually committed to making a good game and this has nothing to do with greed.
That may not be the case, but at present we simply do not know what the reality of the situation was.
A publisher trashing devs of a beloved game with personal attacks certainly was a bold move.
However, instead of participating in the game development, he chose to focus on a personal film project.
We are deeply disappointed by the former leadership’s conduct, and above all, we feel a profound sense of betrayal by their failure to honor the trust placed in them by our fans.
So professional!
If that description is accurate then there's nothing unprofessional about that.
What would be unprofessional in that situation is the original devs not doing their jobs and then allowing a fan backlash to grow.
Again, we don't know the reality of the situation. I think everyone would be curious to hear from other devs at the studio that aren't part of management or the three who were fired but we haven't yet.
Your second example is a perfectly worded admonishment, if the claims are true. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and all that.
I'm actually inclined to believe this somewhat, for the simple fact that Krafton could be legally liable for slander if the statements are untrue.
Also, did we know previously that 90% of that $250M was allocated to the three executives? That's a bit shocking to me. If Krafton really wanted to create goodwill, they could say that money remains on the table but would be 100% allocated to the rest of the development team now instead.
Hey, might not have a rat in this race, but I'm gonna wait for a bit, ever since DOOM.
Lmao as usual gamers rush in with outrage and turns out the issue is not that simple.
Without outrage, they won't even consider putting out a statement.
That's not why people get outraged, they get outraged because it's addictive and they spend too much time on social media.
You must not trust anyone you know.
I do, I don't trust the outraged opinions of people using the outrage machine.
After the last decade or more of people complaining about greedy publishers forcing devs to release half-baked messes too early (Cyberpunk, No Man's Sky, etc), it feels like I'm living in a bizarro world to see so much criticism for a publisher delaying a game to (allegedly) make it better.
You do have to remember that the devs had just as much of a reason to push out a half-baked game as the publisher did for delaying the game.
The bonus situation makes this case different from the others. Both scenarios are equally likely.
Also a great point.
I'm not ruling anything out at this point. It could be a classic case of a greedy corporation pushing out the real artists in order to exploit the art. It could be that the devs (specifically the 3 guys involved in the lawsuit) got lazy after they got paid. It could be both, neither, something else entirely. Honestly with how things go these days I'm just grateful there hasn't been anything distasteful enough tl give me qualms about playing Subnautica.
Subnautica 2 must be in a pretty dire spot for this to happen. I guess we'll see as the story unrolls and early access comes eventually but I've met many successful people who stopped caring after they made it big (which is fine but then just quit) so I really wouldn't be surprised if the publisher is right here.
Yeah. If this is a case of "publisher buys out studio, replaces leadership, runs game into the ground" or "leadership of indie studio sells out, coasts on gold parachute, provides no leadership to the game's dev team" or anything in between... The game won't be good. It certainly won't be good in early access. It's an easy "skip unless it turns out to be completely mindbogglingly phenomenal on launch" for me. A downgrade from its prior status of "the only thing that'll prevent me from buying this after early access is if it's complete dogshit".
I am inclined to believe that Krafton are completely in the right, they were not lying about Charlie's side-hustle, after all. He is genuinely putting his time into producing three different film projects, and there is no way you are going to juggle these with the full time development of a video game sequel..
Krafton also wouldn't put out a statement like this if it weren't true, otherwise they'd be getting sued out of their arse.