Following the sudden leadership changes that have been made at Unknown Worlds, someSubnautica 2fans are calling to boycott the game - but not everyone is convinced.
If you played the originalSubnauticaand have been anxiously waiting for its sequel, then you’ve no doubt heard about all of the drama this week. A few days ago out of nowhere,Krafton announced that the creators of Subnautica and Unknown Worlds co-foundersTed Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire, had been removed from the studio.
The three leads behind Subnautica are being replaced with Striking Distance Studios CEO Steve Papoutsis,which caused a lot of worry considering how suddenly the news was announced. A statement was shared thatpromised nothing was changing with the sequel and that the team making the game was the same, but that response hasn’t exactly appeased everyone.
Some Subnautica fans are trying to boycott the game over leadership changes at Unknown Worlds
“That’s a precedent no player should accept”
Over on the PC gaming subreddit,Redditor PeterRockLife shared a post calling for fans of the series to boycott Subnautica 2by removing it from Steam wishlists and speaking out about it. The reason for the boycott is due to the changes that were made at Unknown Worlds, which PeterRockLife claims come from the trio “pushing for more development time”.
PeterRockLife says that if players accept the changes, then they’re “telling publishers it’s fine to axe the very people who built the games we love”, and that fans should remove it from their wishlist, not pre-order it, and not buy it at launch. As of the time of writing, the post has over 6,000 upvotes and is one of the most popular on the PC gaming subreddit.
Despite this popularity,it seems that a good deal of Subnautica fans don’t agree with the boycott or the reasoning for it. Even though the decision to change Unknown Worlds' leadership was controversial, some point out that the claim that the three asked for more development time doesn’t have much weight to it, as we’ve not heard from McGuire, Gill, or Cleveland.
Have we even heard anything from kicked guys to “stand with them”?
The general consensus for the boycott effort is that it’s based on speculation and annoyance at the situation, rather than actual facts. Others say that the claims don’t even make sense since Subnautica 2 is launching in early access and was never going to be “finished” by its launch anyway.
Overall, despite how much attention the post is receiving and how upset fans were at three of the leads suddenly being replaced, it doesn’t seem like the boycott is going to go anywhere anytime soon. As strange as it all is, it’s absolutely worth waiting for more information until getting too worked up about it.
