The dispute between Krafton and Unknown Worlds over Subnautica 2 royalties has been going on for a long time and has become one of the murkiest cases involving negotiations between a publisher and a studio that we have ever seen. In short, Krafton manipulated the terms and the release date of Subnautica 2 to avoid paying $250 million to the employees of Unknown Worlds, as well as sacking its senior management without warning. Later, the courts forced the publisher to reinstate the studio's co-founder, Ted Gill, as its CEO, and it now appears that the negotiations have come to a fitting conclusion.
According to Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, Krafton has agreed to pay the bonus to the Subnautica 2 developers, as well as committing to pay further incentives if certain (new) conditions are met during the development of the final version, given that Subnautica 2 is currently an Early Access title that has already sold over 4 million copies.
The agreement is particularly favourable to employees this time round, as previously that bonus was restricted to staff who were actively employed at the time of the publisher's acquisition of the studio in 2021; now, everyone - past and present - will benefit from this bonus. As part of this agreement, Ted Gill has agreed to step down from his role as CEO and leave the company. "We have mutually agreed to part ways," said Ted Gill. "New leadership is the best way forward for the studio."
"We are all very excited about Subnautica 2 and its tremendous success," said the now former CEO.