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The fierce legal dispute between former Subnautica 2 studio leads and publisher Krafton has now reached its trial stage, revealing new angles of the two opponents' fight for a $250-million earnout ex-Subnautica heads say they're due, and Krafton suggests they don't deserve. Krafton has provided GamesRadar+ a transcript of the November 17 court session; during the session, fired CEO Ted Gill implies Krafton is also holding back developer Unknown Worlds from releasing a secret game and Subnautica movie adaptation.
When asked if he wants his position at Unknown Worlds reinstated, Gill responds, "Absolutely, yes." When asked why, Gill gives three main reasons: to see Subnautica 2 launch, to watch the Subnautica movie fired studio co-founder Charlie Cleveland was apparently working on, and to have the unannounced title code named Project Labrador "come to light."
"We've been working tirelessly for three and a half years on Subnautica 2. The release was imminent," Gill says, alluding to Unknown Worlds' originally desired August 14, 2025 launch. "And to have that just taken from you at the last moment is hard." Krafton terminated Gill, Cleveland, and co-founder Max McGuire in July, emphasizing to GamesRadar+ in an email that "the former executives, who are asking to be returned to leadership positions, had really been disengaged from the high priority Subnautica 2 game. Charlie Cleveland, for example, had no role at all with Subnautica 2."
Gill agrees with this statement in his own testimony, saying "Charlie had no role" with Subnautica 2.
Still, Gill tells the court about Subnautica 2, "I want to see it through. I want to finish what we started. I'm so excited about it."
"But there's many other aspects too," he continues. "I want to see the Subnautica film as a fan. We were making great progress. I want it to see the light of day. I would love to push that forward." According to Gill, "Charlie [Cleveland] was going to lead all creative efforts on" potential film and TV Subnautica spin-offs.
"Similarly," he says, "as I mentioned, we were a multiproject studio. There's another game that we had a code name called Project Labrador that we were working on that I'm really passionate about. I want to see that game come to light too."
In a company statement provided to GamesRadar+, Krafton says, "The trial is currently ongoing where we are making the case that the decisions we have made were all about ensuring the best possible experience for our players. As we have made clear – we were forced to make a change when the former leaders showed little interest in the development of Subnautica 2, which has always been our top priority.
"Now, this trial comes down to plaintiffs asking to be restored to jobs they were not doing, said they had no interest in doing, and had previously declined requests that they come back and do those jobs. We look forward to continuing to present our evidence before the judge and are confident we will prevail and be allowed to continue our incredible progress."
