Over 4 million copies sold.

Krafton will have to pay out $250 million to Subnautica 2's developer, Unknown Worlds. This $250 million bonus was one of the core issues of a legal battle between Krafton and Unknown Worlds' leadership earlier this year.

Basically, when Krafton acquired Unknown Worlds in 2021, they agreed to pay out an addition $250 million to the studio if certain sales goals were met. Those sales goals used $69.8 million in revenue as a baseline. Then, for every additional dollar above that amount earned in revenue, Krafton would pay $3.12. This amount owed to Unknown Worlds would be capped at $250 million.

During Subnautica 2's development, Krafton fired the co-founders of Unknown Worlds over a bunch of nonsense and attempted to go back on their bonus agreement. Those co-founders took Krafton to court. The judge ruled in their favor and said that Krafton has to make good on that bonus agreement if Subnautica 2's release hits the sales milestone before September 15, 2026.

Subnautica 2 released into Steam Early Access on May 14, 2026. It took less than two weeks since that release for the game to hit the sales milestone that would give Unknown Worlds that full $250 million bonus from Krafton.

According to Alinea Analytics (HT IGN), Subnautica 2 pulled in over $100 million in just one week. They also estimate that Subnautica 2 is the fastest-selling Steam game in 2026. The Korean Economic Daily (again, HT IGN), says that Krafton is paying out the $250 million to Unknown Worlds. An interesting fact relayed by these outlets is that $250 million is "equivalent to about 35% of Krafton's operating profit last year."

There are probably many things that Krafton could have done different throughout this entire ordeal. The amount they initially paid for Unknown Worlds was absurdly high to begin with. Then to agree to a $250 million bonus on top of that? Bizarre. Then it was discovered that Krafton's CEO Changhan Kim consulted regularly with ChatGPT to find ways to oust the Unknown World's leadership in order to get out of that $250 million bonus.