Under the sea, a lawsuit, a payout, an acquisition, and an AI chatbot, are in this story.
Krafton forced to pay a $250 million earnout to Unknown Worlds is the rare corporate story. I am talking about the devs of Subnautica 2. The game sold four million copies in under a week, hit a million in its first hour, and pulled more than 460,000 concurrent players on Steam, generating an estimated $100 million in seven days and becoming 2026's fastest-selling Steam title.
Despite the success the game actually had a less than normal year. In a nutshell, Krafton allegedly removed the people who would trigger this exact bonus, delayed the game to push it past the deadline, lost in court, and then watched the game succeed so much that the payout it engineered around became unavoidable anyway.
The deal of the decade for Unknown Worlds it seems. When Krafton bought Unknown Worlds in 2021 for $500 million, the agreement included a performance bonus that pays out once the studio's monthly revenue clears $69.8 million, at a rate of $3.12 for every $1 up to a $250 million ceiling. In plain terms, Krafton wrote a contract that would cost it a quarter of a billion dollars precisely if Subnautica 2 became a massive hit. Simple, right? They acquired a studio whose entire track record, roughly 18.5 million franchise sales, screamed that a hit was exactly what was coming. Subnautica 2 was one of the most expected games of the year.
The Part Where a CEO Asked ChatGPT for an Exit
Well it is always funny, when a CEO uses weird tactics to not pay. Court filings indicate CEO of Krafton Kim viewed the upcoming earnout as a "bad deal" where the company was "being taken advantage of," and that he went so far as to ask ChatGPT for legal advice on how to avoid basically paying it. Even the chatbot reportedly told him the payout would be difficult to dodge. Of course, being the CEO, he pressed ahead anyway, with Krafton firing CEO Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire in mid-2025, blaming an "absence of core leadership" and a delay it pinned on Gill, even as the team was reportedly on track for the early access release that would have made them eligible for the money. The founders sued, alleging they were ousted to avoid the bonus, and Krafton countered that they'd "resorted to litigation to demand a multimillion-dollar payout they haven't earned," while accusing them of stealing documents on the way out.
Why the Ruling Made the Outcome Inevitable
The lawsuit was filed in Delaware and the decision closed every escape route for Krafton. First of all, the judge ordered Gill reinstated as CEO and extended the earnout deadline to September 15, 2026 to compensate for the months he was removed, with the founders able to push it to March 2027 if needed. That ruling found the delay defense didn't hold and effectively handed the studio the runway to hit the target. Then the game launched and the milestones were cleared so fast. The roughly 100 staff at Unknown Worlds stand to share bonuses reportedly ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars into seven figures each, and the $250 million bill works out to around 35 percent of Krafton's entire operating profit last year. Krafton still owns the studio, which makes the working relationship from here genuinely awkward to say the least. The company spent a year and significant legal capital trying not to reward the team that just delivered its biggest hit, and the only thing it accomplished was paying full price with a court watching.
This story was a victory honestly for the Unknown Worlds staff, in which they walked away with a hefty sum and delivered maybe the GOTY.
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