New leaks have come out from the development of Subnautica 2 that’s helping to form a bigger picture of what happened behind the scenes.
As shared on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit by user Midnight_M_, a screenshot of a Discord conversation is going around between fans and a staff member making the game at studio Unknown Worlds Entertainment.
This developer seems to be sympathetic to Ted Gill, Charles Cleveland, and Mark Mcguire, the heads of the studio who were just fired by Krafton at the start of the month. This developer has spoken out as the three developers deal with the pressing issue of the moment: did they “neglect their responsibilities” in making Subnautica 2?
The developer uses the name Anthony on Discord, and we’ll share his most important quotes:
Charlie was my friend, and he and Ted brought me onto the company.
I would never say they did nothing.
But I will say they were not actively working on the game day-to-day, and that was always the case because they had a team they trusted to make the game. And that’s still the case.
Because they wanted to have us make the game and raise up new folks. It was never bad.
As we pointed out, Anthony wanted to paint a favorable picture for Gill, Cleveland, and Mcguire. However, we have to acknowledge that this claim can help support the allegations against the three made by Krafton. Based on your personal bias, you may choose to interpret parts of these statements to supporting what you believe happened behind the scenes.
We also reported on a leaked document that Krafton would subsequently verify as authentic. The report found that Subnautica 2 was behind schedule so much that it wasn’t enough for Krafton to delay the game’s Early Access launch. They also had to reassess the project’s overall feasibility.
In the same way that we don’t know if allegations that Subnautica 2 was behind schedule, and if Unknown Worlds’ heads were to blame, we don’t know what Krafton intends to do with this game now. While it’s true that Unknown Worlds’ 40 employees were hoping to get a $ 25 million bonus earnout payday, that payday was contingent on Subnautica 2 being a financial success. If Krafton ends up with a Subnautica 2 that fails in the market, they would only end up laying off these developers, even if they were coerced to give out those payouts.
And so, all of this is really contingent on Subnautica 2 being successful. While we are clearly only at the start of this story, we certainly hope that we can tell a happy ending at the end of it.