 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Founder |
|
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
Key people | Steve Papoutsis (CEO) [1] |
| Products | |
| Parent | Krafton (2021–present) |
| Website | unknownworlds |
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.
 | This section needs additional citations for verification .(July 2025) |
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. [2] 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. [3]
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. [4]
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. [5]
In June 2008, Cory Strader was hired as art director. [6] 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. [7]
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. [8] During its 2019 fiscal year, Perfect World sold the majority of its shares in Unknown Worlds to an undisclosed entity. [9] It sold the remainder by August 2021. [10]
In October 2021, South Korean video game holding company and publisher Krafton, known for overseeing titles such as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and TERA through its subsidiaries, announced that it would acquire Unknown Worlds. Krafton stated that Unknown Worlds would continue to operate independently. [11] [12]
Subnautica 2 , a sequel to Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero , was scheduled to be released in early access in 2025 for Windows and Xbox Series X/S. [13] Months before the expected release of Subnautica 2, Krafton announced in July 2025 that Unknown Worlds founders Cleveland and McGuire, as well as CEO Ted Gill, had been replaced by Steve Papoutsis from Krafton's subsidiary Striking Distance Studios, best known for developing The Callisto Protocol . Krafton did not provide a reason for their departure, but said "While Krafton sought to keep the Unknown Worlds' co-founders and original creators of the Subnautica series involved in the game's development, the company wishes them well on their next endeavors." [14] Krafton also delayed the release of Subnautica 2 to 2026, even though the departing founders stated the game was ready for its early access release. According to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News, the move was made months before Krafton was to pay $250 million to Unknown Worlds for an on-time delivery of Subnautica 2. [15] Players reacted to departures, delay, and Schreier's story by threatening to boycott Subnautica 2 and review bomb the game at release. [16] In response, Krafton stated that the original leadership was removed as it had abandoned its responsibilities at the studio, leading to significant delays in Subnautica 2's development. [17] Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill filed a lawsuit against Krafton related to their firings that same month. [18]
Kotaku later reported on a leaked internal memo between Krafton and Unknown Worlds from May 2025 that said the publisher did not believe that the amount of content in Subnautica 2 was sufficient to "drive IP growth and expansion", and had sought for Unknown Worlds to increase the amount of game by 30%; [19] Krafton confirmed the memo was legitimate, resulting from a milestone review of the current build of Subnautica 2, and had "recommended to enhance the content volume and level of polish before launching", stating that the developers had removed some of the planned content set in their early access scheduled from 2023, and "due to a gap between the current state and the content volume assumed during the initial launch planning, it is necessary to reassess the release timeline and roadmap." [20]
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.
A subsidiary of Krafton | |
| Natural Selection series | |
| Subnautica series | |
| Other games | |
