With the legal battle between Krafton and Unknown Worlds co-founders Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire now having hit the trial stage, a court transcript indicates that the studio has had an unknown and unannounced game in the works that has been held back by Krafton. According to GamesRadar, Gill – who was also the former CEO of the studio – spoke about this secret game, as well as a movie adaptation of Subnautica during the November 17 court session.
At court, Gill also said “absolutely, yes” when asked whether he would like to be reinstated as the CEO of the studio. The reasons behind this, according to Gill, are to steer the launch of Subnautica 2, the production of a Subnautica movie, which was seemingly being worked on by Cleveland, and to release the secret game, which was being developed under the codename Project Labrador.
“We’ve been working tirelessly for three and a half years on Subnautica 2. The release was imminent,” Gill said in reference to the originally planned Early Access launch of the title earlier this year. “And to have that just taken from you at the last moment is hard.” He also noted that “Charlie had no role” when it came to the development of Subnautica 2.
“But there’s many other aspects too,” Gill continued. “I want to see the Subnautica film as a fan. We were making great progress. I want it to see the light of day. I would love to push that forward.”
“Similarly, as I mentioned, we were a multiproject studio. There’s another game that we had a code name called Project Labrador that we were working on that I’m really passionate about. I want to see that game come to light too.”
In its own statement to GamesRadar, Krafton spoke about the decision to push back the release of Subnautica 2 as being its way of ensuring that it is “the best possible experience to our players.” The company also doubled down on its previously-noted “absence of core leadership” from the three co-founders by mentioning them wanting to be reinstated in their positions at Unknown Worlds.
“The trial is currently ongoing where we are making the case that the decisions we have made were all about ensuring the best possible experience for our players. As we have made clear – we were forced to make a change when the former leaders showed little interest in the development of Subnautica 2, which has always been our top priority.”
“Now, this trial comes down to plaintiffs asking to be restored to jobs they were not doing, said they had no interest in doing, and had previously declined requests that they come back and do those jobs. We look forward to continuing to present our evidence before the judge and are confident we will prevail and be allowed to continue our incredible progress.”
Earlier this week, the three co-founders had also accused Krafton CEO Changham Kim of using ChatGPT to try and figure out a way of getting out of the earn-out that was promised to Unknown Worlds and its co-founders as part of the company acquiring the studio.
