MRIXRT @ReallyCool
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Breaking Down the Leaked Subnautica 2 Documents (With Full Context)
🕑 Added 2025-10-08 16:31:25 +0000 UTCHey Patrons,
The full video is live, but I wanted to do a deeper dive here with the actual leaked documents that have been circulating since the lawsuit dropped. These give a lot more context to what actually happened behind closed doors at Unknown Worlds.
I've gathered the key documents—the May 2025 Krafton milestone review, sections from the founders' lawsuit filing, and Krafton's official response to fans. Looking at these side-by-side tells a much more nuanced story than either side wants to admit publicly.
Let me walk you through what these documents actually show:
Image 1: The Milestone Review - Content Comparison (2023-2025)
This is the smoking gun that Krafton used to justify everything. It's a table comparing what was planned for Early Access launch across three different years: 2023, 2024, and 2025.
The cuts are significant. Two entire biomes were removed between 2023 and 2025. The creature count went from 20+ down to just 12 types, with Leviathans cut from 2 types to just 1. The customization features that were supposed to let you modify your character and biomods? Completely excluded by 2025.
But they also added things. The number of key Points of Interest in the Coral Garden area actually increased. They introduced something called "Blight" as a new system. The base-building parts went from 20+ to 56 types.
The document concludes: "the current target content volume has been reduced or adjusted across various elements... it is necessary to reassess the release timeline and roadmap."
So yeah, the scope changed dramatically. But was it gutted, or was it being refocused?
Image 2: The Final Recommendation
This is the part that makes the whole timeline suspicious.
The milestone review's final recommendation was clear: "Propose to launch with an MVP-level build that allows players to experience the core loop (survival, gathering, crafting, exploration, etc.) at a high level of quality."
MVP stands for "Minimum Viable Product." This is literally the industry term for Early Access launches. The review acknowledges the game "lacks the level of polish and market impact required to drive IP growth and expansion" as a full 1.0 release, but recommends enhancing it after launching in Early Access.
The "As-is" vs "To-be" comparison shows they had the intro region done, 12 creatures, 20 tools/equipment, and 1 chapter of narrative. The "To-be" goal was 6 regions, 12 creatures, 2 leviathans, 8 creatures (likely different types), and 3 chapters.
So the milestone review from May 2025 said: launch what you have in Early Access, then build toward the bigger vision. That's a pretty standard approach for survival games.
Image 3: The Founders' Lawsuit Claims
This excerpt is from the founders' legal filing. Pay attention to paragraphs 94-97.
Paragraph 94 (partially redacted): Someone at Unknown Worlds wanted to put together a business and marketing plan to sell 2-3 million copies by December 31, 2025. The filing says "This would have left the Sellers poised to easily make their full $250 million earnout."
Paragraph 95: The founders pointed to Krafton's own game, inZOI, which sold 1.1 million copies in its first week "despite having significantly less content and being less developed than Subnautica 2." Their argument: if inZOI could do that with less content, Subnautica 2 should easily double those numbers with proper support.
Paragraph 96: "But days later, the Founders received confirmation that Krafton's support had gone cold." On April 11, 2025, Krafton's Head of Publishing told the founders Krafton was looking to delay but "did not seem to have a valid reason for doing so."
Paragraph 97: "From mid-April forward, Krafton began building a new story: that Subnautica 2 was not ready and could not be released in [redacted] 2025."
This timeline is damning. April 11th: "no valid reason" for delay. Mid-April: narrative shift begins. July 2nd: founders fired. July 9th: delay announced past the bonus deadline.
Image 4: Krafton's Public Response
This is Krafton's official statement to the Subnautica community, posted after the firings.
The key sections:
"However, regrettably, the former leadership abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them. Subnautica 2 was originally planned for an Early Access launch in early 2024, but the timeline has since been significantly delayed."
They specifically call out Charlie Cleveland: "In particular, following the failure of Moonbreaker, KRAFTON asked Charlie to devote himself to the development of Subnautica 2. However, instead of participating in the game development, he chose to focus on a personal film project."
But then they also say: "We are deeply disappointed by the former leadership's conduct, and above all, we feel a profound sense of betrayal by their failure to honor the trust placed in them by our fans."
Notice what they're doing here: they're not arguing the game couldn't launch in 2025. They're arguing the founders abandoned it, which caused delays. That's a very different defense than "the game wasn't ready."
What This All Means
Looking at these documents together, here's what I think happened:
The game genuinely had content issues and scope creep problems. The milestone review proves that. But the review also recommended exactly what Charlie Cleveland claimed the game was ready for: an Early Access MVP launch.
Krafton's April decision to delay wasn't based on the milestone review, that review actually supported an EA launch. Something else changed their mind in mid-April.
The founders believe they were about to hit their revenue targets and get paid $250 million. Krafton decided to delay past the deadline. When the founders pushed back, they got fired a week before the delay announcement.
Both things can be true: the game had real development problems AND the timing of the firings and delay was financially motivated.
The lawsuit is still ongoing, so more documents will probably leak. But right now, this is the fullest picture we have of what actually went down.
Thanks for supporting the channel and making it possible to spend time digging through legal filings and leaked corporate documents. This is the kind of work that doesn't fit in a 20-minute video, but it matters.
—MRIXRT
P.S. - The redactions in the lawsuit documents are probably revenue targets and specific dates that could identify sources. The fact that so much isn't redacted suggests both sides want this information public to support their narratives.
