{"id":11242,"date":"2026-07-01T17:53:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T14:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=11242"},"modified":"2026-07-01T20:21:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T16:51:37","slug":"subnautica-2-developers-entire-staff-get-their-bonuses-after-krafton-agrees-to-settlement-but-ceo-steps-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/07\/01\/subnautica-2-developers-entire-staff-get-their-bonuses-after-krafton-agrees-to-settlement-but-ceo-steps-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Subnautica 2 Developer&#8217;s Entire Staff Get Their Bonuses After Krafton Agrees to Settlement, but CEO Steps Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The entire staff of Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds will get their bonuses after parent company Krafton reached a settlement with studio leadership.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Bloomberg reported that as part of the settlement, Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill had stepped down, leaving the company to look for a new boss. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">In a statement provided to IGN, Krafton confirmed the settlement, insisting its focus now was on the future of Subnautica 2, which Unknown Worlds will continue to develop,<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;Krafton, Inc., Unknown Worlds Entertainment and Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire have reached a mutual settlement and agreed to dismiss all pending legal proceedings,&#8221; Krafton said. &#8220;Unknown Worlds and Krafton are focused on supporting Subnautica 2, its Early Access journey to the full 1.0 release and the global community that has made the franchise so special. Unknown Worlds will continue leading development, with Krafton providing support for the success of the game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Subnautica 2 Screenshots<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/subnautica-2-developers-entire-staff-get-their-bonuses-after-krafton-agrees-to-settlement-but-ceo-steps-down.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3381835873 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\"><\/span><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The underwater adventure has sold a mammoth 4 million copies since its early access launch on May 14, achieving more than 467,000 peak concurrent players on Steam. But its development was turbulent, with Krafton firing Gill and co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire in the summer of last year. At the time, Krafton said the game&#8217;s launch had also been delayed \u2014 something it blamed on Gill \u2014 even though its team had been working towards an early access release that would have seen them eligible for a $250 million bonus.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Gill and the co-founders immediately launched a lawsuit against Krafton, suggesting they were ousted to avoid that bonus being paid, while Krafton hit back and said the fired staff had &#8220;resorted to litigation to demand a multimillion-dollar payout they haven&#8217;t earned.&#8221; Krafton also accused them of stealing documents in anticipation of subsequent legal action, muddying the waters over their exit.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">But in March, Krafton was ordered to reinstate Gill and extend the proposed $250 million bonus to staff in one of the most dramatic legal rulings the video game industry had ever seen.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The legal battle revealed a number of shocking revelations around the South Korean company\u2019s internal actions in the run up to Subnautica 2\u2019s release. For example, as internal projections showed Subnautica 2 looked on course to trigger the earnout, Krafton\u2019s chief executive, Changhan Kim, believed it was a \u201cbad deal\u201d and felt \u201ctaken advantage of,\u201d according to the ruling.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Kim was warned by his legal department that the earnout would still need to be paid even if there was a \u201cdismissal with cause\u201d of the Unknown Worlds\u2019 leadership. He was also warned it would expose Krafton to \u201clawsuit and reputation risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Kim then turned to ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot built by OpenAI, for help, vice-chancellor Lori Will of the court of chancery in Delaware said in the ruling. ChatGPT initially responded that the earnout would be \u201cdifficult to cancel,\u201d but later, at ChatGPT\u2019s suggestion, Kim formed an internal taskforce, dubbed Project X. \u201cThe task force\u2019s mandate was to either negotiate a \u2018deal\u2019 on the earnout or execute a \u2018takeover\u2019 of Unknown Worlds,\u201d Will stated. \u201cThey looked to buy time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cOver the next month, Krafton followed most of ChatGPT\u2019s recommendations,\u201d Will wrote.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Development of Subnautica 2 continues as Unknown Worlds works through its plan to update the game throughout early access. The developer has confirmed plans to add a new vehicle and new region centred around the Collector Leviathan, but don&#8217;t expect to ever be able to directly kill fish.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/subnautica-2-developers-entire-staff-get-their-bonuses-after-krafton-agrees-to-settlement-but-ceo-steps-down.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/subnautica-2-developers-entire-staff-get-their-bonuses-after-krafton-agrees-to-settlement-but-ceo-steps-down.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/subnautica-2-developers-entire-staff-get-their-bonuses-after-krafton-agrees-to-settlement-but-ceo-steps-down.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/subnautica-2-developers-entire-staff-get-their-bonuses-after-krafton-agrees-to-settlement-but-ceo-steps-down.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-11242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11244,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11242\/revisions\/11244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}