It was only recently announced that publisher Krafton would have to rehire Subnautica boss Ted Gill, who had been fired. Now there is finally a release date. Subnautica 2 is set to be released in May.
The most wanted game on Steam finally has a release date– at least almost. Because the developers of Subnautica 2 don’t want to commit to the exact day yet. However, it is now certain that the open-world survival gamewill be launched in Early Accessin May 2026.
This announcement alone is a real milestone for the game. Due to an ongoing legal dispute between developer studio Unknown Worlds and publisher Krafton, the game has been stuck in a limbo of uncertainty for months. For a long time, it was unclear who actually had creative control over Subnautica 2 and whether the game, whose early access release was actually planned for 2025, would be released any time soon.
Now, however, there is finally clarity:On March 16, a court in the US state of Delaware ruled that Krafton must reinstate the dismissed studio CEO Ted Gillwith immediate effect and give him back control of the game. Apparently, the publisher had deliberately tried to sabotage the foreseeable early access success of the game by firing the bosses in order to avoid paying out bonuses worth millions.
The court has now ruled that studio founder Ted Gill is now back in charge at Unknown Worlds and that Krafton is no longer allowed to interfere in the planning of the early access launch of Subnautica 2 on Steam.
This means there is now a lot of movement in the Early Access plans for the underwater game. Steve Papoutsis, the interim head of Unknow Worlds appointed by Krafton, turnedaccording to a report by IGNto the development team on March 17 with the following message andconfirmed a release in May:
Dear team,
We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every member of the Unknown Worlds team and our partners. Over the past nine months, you have worked incredibly hard to bring Subnautica 2 closer to completion.
The result of these efforts is a game we are truly proud of – a game that all of us and our partners at KRAFTON unanimously agree is ready for Early Access launch in May.
Thanks to your dedication and talent, we’ve added more story chapters, designed new creatures, created new biomes and many more features. With this significant progress, we passed KRAFTON’s milestone review last week and are now ready to begin our open development phase together with our community.
[…] We look forward to working with Ted Gill to ensure a smooth transition and work towards a successful launch. […]
– Steve Papoutsis, CEO of Unknown Worlds
But there is more positive news for the former management team of Unknown Worlds. The court in Delaware ruled that the studio founders now have significantly more time to achieve their sales targets for Subnautica 2, which were contractually agreed with Krafton, and thus earn their mighty bonus of 250 million dollars. You can find out more about this in the link box above.
Publisher Krafton has already announced that it will consider all legal means against the latest court ruling. However, the publisher does not want to stand in the way of the game’s Early Access launch. A release of the highly anticipated survival game in May 2026 therefore seems very likely.
