Charlie Cleveland spent 20 years building a world beneath the surface. Then he cashed out and floated away.
For years, Charlie Cleveland felt like the rarest thing in the gaming industry: a true believer. He wasn’t just making games—he was making statements. Subnautica, the genre-defying survival game that made him a name, dared to be meditative, non-violent, and profoundly strange. It invited players to descend into a world of alien oceans, not to dominate it, but to adapt, survive, and listen.
So when Cleveland and his fellow Unknown Worlds co-founders were abruptly ousted earlier this month, fans were ready to rally. The posts came quickly: this was betrayal. This was heartbreak. This was corporate meddling wrecking a beloved indie studio. And Cleveland leaned into that sentiment, publishing a personal letter painting his removal as a shock—and implying that Subnautica 2 was finally ready, if only Krafton would let it go.
But now, it seems, there’s another side to the story. And it’s not nearly as romantic.
Surfacing
On paper, Krafton’s acquisition of Unknown Worlds looked like a victory. In 2021, the PUBG publisher paid $500 million to bring the Subnautica studio into its fold. Another $250 million was set aside as “earn-out compensation”—performance-based bonuses that were, notably, 90% allocated to Cleveland, co-founder Max McGuire, and then-CEO Ted Gill.
Krafton says it made that investment with the expectation that the trio would continue to lead Subnautica 2. But, according to a blistering July 2025 statement, they didn’t.
“Regrettably, the former leadership abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them,” Krafton wrote. The company says it repeatedly asked Cleveland to resume his role as game director following the commercial failure of Moonbreaker, but he declined—reportedly choosing instead to focus on a personal AI-generated film project.
In Krafton’s view, the team that actually had been working on Subnautica 2 day-to-day was left in the lurch, navigating a rudderless production with shifting creative direction and dwindling content. Early access, originally planned for early 2024, has now slipped to 2026.
That “deep sense of betrayal” Krafton claimed to feel? That wasn’t about gamers. It was about their own executives.
The Descent
The Cleveland-as-victim narrative now feels, at best, incomplete. The man who once mailed fan letters begging for $20 bills to fund his indie dream is now seen by many in the Subnautica community as someone who took the buyout and walked.
The fan reaction has started to turn. Once a folk hero for building a hit game with heart and hustle, Cleveland is now being viewed through a more skeptical lens. That heartfelt goodbye post? Some now see it as manipulative—a preemptive PR move from someone who knew what was coming.
His choice to work on an AI film project—widely criticized as cringeworthy, if not creatively bankrupt—has only added fuel to the fire. For a designer once lauded for creating deeply human, atmospheric experiences, the pivot to tech-bro art experiments landed like a bellyflop.
The real sting, though, is that for many fans, this was their game. And Cleveland, in their eyes, walked away from it.
Pressure Below
Meanwhile, Krafton is working hard to steady the ship. They’ve brought in Striking Distance vet Steve Papoutsis to lead Unknown Worlds, and insist that the core Subnautica 2 development team remains unchanged. The company has promised better communication, no monetization schemes, and continued support for the series’ creative DNA.
Whether fans believe that remains to be seen. Krafton’s statement, unusually emotional for a corporate press release, suggests just how fractured things have become behind the scenes. There’s no elegant metaphor here. No quiet moment of reflection. This is a messy, public split between art and business—and no one comes out looking great.
What Now?
Maybe Subnautica was always about more than diving. About falling—into something bigger, or deeper, or more dangerous. Into obsession. Into ego. Into the illusion of independence under corporate control.
For Cleveland, that fall seems self-inflicted. For Krafton, it was a miscalculated bet. And for the fans, it’s just another lesson in where passion projects end up once there’s money on the table.
Subnautica 2 is still coming. Eventually. It may still be great. The team working on it, by most accounts, still cares deeply. But something has shifted beneath the surface. The sea still calls. But this time, no one’s sure who’s steering the ship.