Subnautica 2 launched on Steam via early access earlier today after a prolonged and messy legal battle between publisher Krafton and developer Unknown Worlds. In less than two hours, the highly-anticipated underwater survival game was able to sell over a million copies. It seems very likely that Krafton will be forced to pay that $250 million bonus it tried so hard to avoid.
On May 14, the official Subnautica 2 Twitter account tweeted that the survival sequel had already sold over 1 million copies on Steam. In the social media post, the devs thanked all of the game’s fans for the support. Meanwhile, according to data from SteamDB, Subnautica 2 reached a massive 467,000 concurrent players on Steam in the hours after it launched. In other words, the game is a massive success and, with over 1,000 reviews, currently has a “Very Positive” user rating on Valve’s PC storefront.
Over 1 million Subnauts have already dived into Subnautica 2 🤯
We can't thank you enough for your support! pic.twitter.com/3a0OKXChvp
— Subnautica (@Subnautica) May 14, 2026
This is great news for developer Unknown Worlds, but exactly the kind of scenario Krafton leadership was trying to avoid, according to court docs.
As we learned in March, as part of the legal battle between Krafton and the devs that started back in 2025, Krafton CEO Changhan Kim used an AI chatbot to try to figure out a way to avoid paying a $250 million bonus payment to Unknown Worlds. That bonus was connected to Krafton’s purchase of the studio and would trigger if the company’s upcoming Subnautica 2 generated enough revenue in a specific amount of time. When projections showed that the upcoming survival game would probably hit those numbers and trigger the payout, Kim began relying on ChatGPT to formulate a plan to stop or stall the payout, which involved firing the heads of the studio and taking control of the game.
In March, a judge ultimately sided with Unknown Worlds, giving the studio control of the game, its future, and reinstating the fired CEO. The court also extended the time the studio had to earn its bonus payment of $250 million, and with the game selling so well, it seems very, very likely that Krafton is going to be forced to pull out its checkbook and pay up.
