 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
Key people | |
| Products | Video games |
| Parent | Krafton (2021–present) |
| Website | www.unknownworlds.com |
Unknown Worlds Entertainment is an American video game developer based in San Francisco. The studio is best known for the Natural Selection and Subnautica series. In October 2021, the studio was acquired by South Korean video game developer Krafton.
Unknown Worlds was formed in May 2001 by Charlie Cleveland and began life as a group of developers responsible for the development of the high-profile free mod for Half-Life , Natural Selection . The success of Natural Selection convinced Cleveland to start work on a commercial sequel to the game: Natural Selection 2 . Soon after, Cleveland founded Unknown Worlds Entertainment as a commercial computer games studio.
Although the casual games market is not the intended direction of Unknown Worlds, Zen of Sudoku, a casual puzzle computer game based on the popular logic puzzle Sudoku, was created in November 2006 in order to generate revenue towards funding the development of Natural Selection 2. [1] Charlie Cleveland, one of the developers of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, cited casual games development as a "last option" for funding this sequel, having been unwilling to sacrifice control of the company to external investors. [2]
In October 2006, Max McGuire became the studio's co-founder, having previously worked at Iron Lore Entertainment as Lead Engine Programmer. McGuire became the Technical Director of UWE and development of Natural Selection 2 began in earnest. Max and Charlie then attracted a group of angel investors including Richard Kain, Matthew Le Merle, Ira Rothken and Colin Wiel to back the company after a meeting at GDC in San Francisco. A year later, Unknown Worlds released Decoda as a commercial debugger for the Lua programming language. This application was created to aid with development of Natural Selection 2, whose game code was largely being written in Lua. [3]
Later on in development of Natural Selection 2, the studio announced it had changed engine from the Source engine to their own proprietary engine developed in-house. After consulting their fanbase on a possible name for their new engine, it was finally named the Evolution engine. Later, it transpired that the name Evolution was already taken and Spark was chosen as the name for the engine. [4]
In June 2008, Cory Strader was hired as art director. [5] Strader had been a previous key member of the development team for Natural Selection. In May 2009, Unknown Worlds began taking pre-orders for standard and special edition versions of Natural Selection 2. Natural Selection 2 was released on 31 October 2012. [6]
Perfect World acquired a 40% stake in Unknown Worlds Entertainment in August 2011 for CN¥ 10,803,330. It raised this to a controlling interest in February 2013 by acquiring a further 20% for CN¥5,098,956. [7] During its 2019 fiscal year, Perfect World sold the majority of its shares in Unknown Worlds to an undisclosed entity. [8] It sold the remainder by August 2021. [9]
In October 2021, South Korean video game developer Krafton, known for having developed PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and TERA , announced that it would acquire Unknown Worlds, and that it would continue to operate as an independent game studio. [10] [11]
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die!. The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.
Natural Selection is a modification for the video game Half-Life. Its concept is a mixture of the first-person shooter and real-time strategy game genres. The game was created by Charlie "Flayra" Cleveland, who later founded the company Unknown Worlds Entertainment. Natural Selection v1 was first publicly released on Halloween 2002, and is now at version 3.2. Natural Selection 2 was released in late 2012.
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Natural Selection 2 is a multiplayer video game which combines first-person shooter and real-time strategy rules. It is set in a science fiction universe in which a human team fights an alien team for control of resources and territory in large and elaborate indoor facilities. It is the sequel to Natural Selection.
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Subnautica is an action-adventure game developed and published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. Players control a non-essential systems maintenance chief named Ryley, often referred to as the janitor inside the Subnautica community, who is the only survivor of a spaceship crash on an alien planet. They are free to explore the oceanic planet. The main objectives are to find essential resources, survive the local flora and fauna, and find a way to escape the planet. It includes some elements of survival games and some elements of non-survival games.
G2A.COM Limited is a digital marketplace headquartered in the Netherlands, with offices in Poland and Hong Kong. The site operates in the resale of gaming products by the use of redemption keys. Other products sold on the site are software, prepaid activation codes, electronics, and merchandise. G2A.COM served online over 25 million customers from over 180 countries.
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Subnautica: Below Zero is an open-world survival action-adventure video game developed and published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. The game is the sequel to Subnautica.
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In August 2011, the Group made an investment of RMB10,803,330 in Unknown Worlds to acquire 40% of its equity interest. In February 2013, the Group started to consolidate Unknown Worlds as it acquired additional 20% equity interest in Unknown Worlds for RMB5,098,956 and obtained control of Unknown Worlds.
