There are some strange things going on right now with Unknown Worlds, the studio behind the Subnautica franchise, and its owner, Krafton.
In a new press release, Krafton announced that they have appointed Steve Papoutsis, who is currently CEO of Striking Distance Studios, as the new CEO of Unknown Worlds. To quote Krafton here:
Papoutsis replaces the previous leadership team—Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire—effective immediately. While KRAFTON sought to keep the Unknown Worlds’ co-founders and original creators of the Subnautica series involved in the game’s development, the company wishes them well on their next endeavors.
So, what happened in Unknown Worlds that made Krafton decide to remove the studio’s management? While we don’t know the full picture as of yet, we can review the studio’s history to at least start to piece things together.
Charlie Cleveland is the original founder of Unknown Worlds, all the way back in 2001. He was part of a dev group that made a Half-Life mod called Natural Selection, and he started the studio to jumpstart work on a standalone sequel, Natural Selection 2. These games would bring together FPS and RTS elements as a genuinely original experience. Max McGuire earned the right to call himself co-founder of Unknown Worlds when he joined in 2006, when the studio finally started proper development of Natural Selection 2. Shortly after McGuire’s hiring, the two managed to acquire angel investor funding, so that they would eventually release Natural Selection 2 in 2012.
In 2018, the studio released its signature title, Subnautica, to PC. Before bringing it to consoles, they hired Ted Gill, fresh off a four year stint at Fandom. Gill was initially hired to be Unknown World’s president before becoming its CEO in 2024. While Gill came much later, all three were very clearly the bosses at Unknown Worlds at the time that they were replaced by Krafton.
But how did Krafton come in? For most of Unknown Worlds’ existence, it had been completely independent. Another game company called Perfect World invested into them to gain controlling interest by 2013, but then sold off its shares in 2021, when Krafton announced they would buy the whole studio. This is the Krafton that’s become one of the biggest publishers in the industry completely off of PUBG. And, like Striking Distance Studios, Krafton promised Unknown Worlds they could continue independently.
Of course, Krafton also made this promise to Striking Distance Studios, but they would eventually replace its founder, Glen Schofield, following the financial and critical failure of its first game, The Callisto Protocol. After the release of its second game, a spinoff called [REDACTED], they once again had layoffs.
Papoutsis himself seems to still have a fairly good reputation. Before joining Schofield in Striking Distance Studios, he had a record 13 year tenure in Electronic Arts, moving up the ladder to be executive producer and general manager of the Dead Space franchise for most of those years. He was also general manager for Battlefield 4 and Battlefield Hardline, and given how he has kept Striking Distance Studios running, Krafton can see firsthand he does have the grit to manage troubled projects and get through them.
While we can only hope to learn more about this situation soon, officially or otherwise, we will send our best wishes to Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire for now.
