Charlie Cleveland

Prev Director/Founder @Moonbreaker @Subnautica, @NS2, @UnknownWorlds, now film: Podcast: 🏳️‍🌈

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

Feeling a swirl of emotions as the community rallies to support us and @Subnautica 2. I've been less involved this time around but I'm really proud of the team that has worked through thick and thin to make to make this happen.

It feels like only yesterday that we hit #1 on Steam with @NS2 after 10 years of work. We had no idea if anyone even still cared by the time we finished. It's been such a tough 10 months but I'm really glad to see that the community is still standing with us.

You guys have always been our super-power.

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@Directingpete @FNCreate Look at that “epic” pic with Tim!

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@beautifullight So cool to see your modern take on @NS2 style movement! Looks amazing.

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@zeeg @Subnautica Wow, really? And you're behind @sentry? I just signed up for that for a new project. Great product. And small world!

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

Feeling a swirl of emotions as the community rallies to support us and @Subnautica 2. I've been less involved this time around but I'm really proud of the team that has worked through thick and thin to make to make this happen.

It feels like only yesterday that we hit #1 on Steam with @NS2 after 10 years of work. We had no idea if anyone even still cared by the time we finished. It's been such a tough 10 months but I'm really glad to see that the community is still standing with us.

You guys have always been our super-power.

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@CohhCarnage @Subnautica Thanks man!!! That means a lot.

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@EvilKimau @Subnautica Awww, thanks Claire! I don't even remember "pitching" Subnautica/EA to you then!

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@elonmusk We worked extremely hard to make that “fish game” - hah!

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@locust9 So jealous! I sold my Lotus, Moxen, etc. back in 1996 to buy my first laptop (it was a good trade but now I would keep them just to caress them at night).

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@LordSharkyNerd @UnknownWorlds @Subnautica Been working on it!

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

It's been a tough eight months for @UnknownWorlds and the @Subnautica community. But today, we've been vindicated!

https://t.co/QNDq8tq5Pz

Time to dive back in. 🌊

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@steverockan Wicked!

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

Hello everyone,

The saga continues. In my previous posts, I mentioned that there would be more to come. Well today, you can finally read the official complaint the original Unknown Worlds shareholders have filed against Krafton.

It’s unfortunate we are here in this situation but we’re doing everything we can to make things right for everyone. Openness and transparency is my thing so we’re glad to bring this truth to light.

Fortis Advisors v. Krafton
https://t.co/1R3zgapCsJ

-Charlie

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

Hello everyone,

It continues to be an explosive and surreal time for the Subnautica team and community. None of this is what we wanted. But we truly appreciate the amazing support we’ve gotten from everyone. It means a lot to us, especially now.

As I wrote last week, we know in our souls that the game is ready for Early Access - that’s just how we roll. And we’d like nothing more than for you to play it (game devs live for this). But it’s not currently under our control.

We’ve now filed a lawsuit against Krafton: the details should eventually become (at least mostly) public - you all deserve the full story. Suing a multi-billion dollar company in a painful, public and possibly protracted way was certainly not on my bucket list. But this needs to be made right. Subnautica has been my life’s work and I would never willingly abandon it or the amazing team that has poured their hearts into it.

As for the earnout, the idea that Max, Ted and I wanted to keep it all for ourselves is totally untrue. I’m in this industry because I love it, not for riches. Historically we’ve always shared our profits with the team and did the same when we sold the studio. You can be damned sure we’ll continue with the earnout/bonus as well. They deserve it for all their incredible work trying to get this great game into your hands.

Stay tuned.

-Charlie

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

What is a Wave but a Thousand Drops?

I started my journey into video game development more than 25 years ago, back before there were any books or courses, back before there were engines to license, back before it even felt like a viable career.

My high school friends and I spent our summers in Burlington, Vermont not working for others, but working to try to create a video game. Every summer we tried and every summer we failed. Failed to have anything even remotely playable before the leaves developed their autumn colors and threatened to fall. But we kept trying, until the final summer after my college graduation in 1996, when just two of us worked through the fall and got our first game playable: an underwater (!) Star Control II clone called Aquarium Fighter. When I played it against my friend for the first time, and I evaluated the fun, controls and balance, I instantly became hooked. Hooked on making games. Hooked on making not-fun-things (but with potential), fun. That game helped me land my first professional game programming job which I used to pay off my credit cards, and I started iterating through the now-familiar cycle of making money to make games.

Now we’re halfway to 2026 and the world is a very different place. Anyone can learn how to make a game on YouTube using free engines. But making money off of making a game has become truly brutal. Like the world’s wealth distribution, it’s feast or famine. Game development is a career now, and it can be a very profitable one. And the artistic heights that games have reached is jaw-dropping: Starcraft. Braid. Limbo. Minecraft. League of Legends. Hades. Inscryption. I dreamed, but never thought, that the design, technology, art and business models of these games would one day be possible. Nor would I ever have believed that games could overtake Hollywood, even if they “weren’t art”.

Without realizing it, I started Unknown Worlds in 2001 by making the Half-Life mod Natural Selection. I worked with a distributed team back before a health crisis mandated it and we released not half-baked games, but documents describing level design and textures for making those levels, with the hope that the community would make maps. Lo and behold, they did. And we eventually hired some of those people, giving them careers at Unknown Worlds, however shaky the long-term prospects might be. I asked the community to send me $20 bills in the mail so I could keep working on the game, and you did. $18k was a tough salary to live off of, but I made it work and loved every moment of it. Like a design hook, but I was hooked on design. So hooked that I spent 10 years making the sequel.

There’s no way that could’ve happened without Max McGuire and his belief that the game was something special. With that, we made just enough money to get Subnautica into a stripped-down early access, which allowed us to find the fun. It didn’t have submarines, base-building, story or survival. But through the early access process, the community helped guide us forward until we found something we all loved. Something we loved to make and something that millions loved to play. There's no way it would've been as successful if we had waited until v1.0 before releasing it to the public.

I tell you all this because I want to tell you that game development is in my blood. So is iteration and early access. Our games have thrived because of it, and one of our games failed because we thought we knew better. I was most passionate about that game, and it fell flat. We worked on it 5 years before our early access, thinking that this time we were experts and we knew better. But fewer people played that game than even that humble Half-Life mod. Even though our studio had financial success in that period, and even though many fans fell in love with the game, it really wounded me and I needed time to heal. Sometimes it feels like I’ll never get over that one.

So with all this as background, I hope you can see why we were so excited to release Subnautica 2 into early access. Many of the folks that started the journey with us nearly 20 years ago have worked hard on Subnautica 2, and they're joined by some incredible new talent who were drawn to the studio by their love of the games and their passion for the way we've made them. We know (and love) that the expectations for this sequel are high. But the team has poured their hearts into the game and their dedication really shows. We helped pioneer early access and our community seems to love it just as much as we do. It’s the best way to develop a game like this.

So you can see why for Max, Ted, myself, the Unknown Worlds team, and for our community, the events of this week have been quite a shock. We know that the game is ready for early access release and we know you’re ready to play it. And while we thought this was going to be our decision to make, at least for now, that decision is in Krafton’s hands. And after all these years, to find that I’m no longer able to work at the company I started stings.

I want you to know that whatever happens to the founders, to the team and to the game, our priority is, and has always been, to make the best damned game we can for the best community in the world. With your Gorge plushies and your hand-drawn fish fan-art, and yes, your hard-earned dollars, you’ve supported us in every way, in every season, cold and warm, since Half-Life modding was even a thing.

And I also want you to know that this is not where the story ends.

-Charlie (“Flayra”)

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@Justin_Gary I couldn’t agree more.

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@steverockan You’re the master! It worked for @Subnautica…

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

I just published a podcast episode on giving creative feedback (movies, games) that actually helps. I've learned a bit about this on both sides of the coin, on games like Subnautica and now on the other side when giving feedback to writers during script development.

I wish I knew some of these things at the beginning of this year!

https://t.co/oIHdloSPzT

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

@robertsdionne @vellocetsoft No - looks interesting. Thanks.

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

https://t.co/GkDxoNzOox

[Charlie Cleveland @Flayra]

https://t.co/5fai4wD47i