Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds' leadership team has been completely replaced by Striking Distance Studios CEO Steve Papoutsis.

Kerbal Space Program 2 vibes… I’m suddenly less optimistic on subnautica 2.

  • mysticpickle@lemmy.caEnglish
    177·
    29 days ago

    Hmmm publisher gutting original creative team from a highly anticipated sequel. This always ends well.

    • LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      55·
      29 days ago

      Yup, sounds like I need to wait for quite a few patches and some real reviews before I buy Kerbal Space Program 2 Subnautica 2

    • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
      373·
      29 days ago

      To be fair, they didn’t gut the original creative team.

      Max McGuire was CTO and a programmer on the original game, Ted Gill was President and a Producer on Below Zero.

      Charlie Cleveland was current CEO, and the director and lead designer of the original game, so was the head of the origin creative team, and that does seem like a big loss, but no one else from the art, writing, or design teams seem to be leaving, so it’s not really a ‘gutting’ of the original creative team.

      My guess (especially given how buggy Subnautica was), is that they were missing their delivery milestones so the publisher wanted to replace the organization heads and move at least Charlie Cleveland back down to a creative role, but they refused and left together.

  • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.worldEnglish
    115·
    29 days ago

    Great. An upper management restructuring. Capitalism does it’s thing again. Subnautica 2 will be a shitty cash grab.

    At least we had the first one.

    • maxwells_daemon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      371·
      29 days ago

      They had already hinted they wanted to make Subnautica 2 into a multiplayer co-op, and they specifically mentioned “games as a service”.

      After backlash, they specified the multiplayer would be optional, and “games as a service” means long term updates, not microtransactions, which sounds suspiciously like a rollback to me…

      I was already kind of expecting that, seeing as below zero’s map wasn’t half as interesting as the first game, the storytelling was mid, and the mechanics were all over the place, like they just wanted to make another hit by shooting in every direction, with half the work put into it.

      • apprehensively_human@lemmy.caEnglish
        321·
        29 days ago

        When Below Zero came out it was clear that they had no idea what made Subnautica special, something that a sequel had no hope of replicating. Fear of the unknown and the drive to explore deeper. Once you’ve completed Subnautica you are a god of the sea, and that knowledge and experience cannot be lost.

        Mobius Digital was able to make a successful DLC for Outer Wilds because they understood what made their game work, which is the player’s own curiosity.

        • Chris Lowles@lemmy.zipEnglish
          4·
          28 days ago

          Co-op could’ve been a nice unlock for completing the game but yeah the isolation was the whole draw for Subnautica.

  • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
    67·
    29 days ago

    Oh good now maybe the Subnautica developers can go independent to make a spiritual successor that isn’t called Subnautica and isn’t garbage.

    • alaphic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      221·
      29 days ago

      Underaquaia? Seaunderia? Drownica? Or, my personal favorite: “fuck ugly giant cthulu adjacent heart attack inducer 2”

      I can only imagine the new PTB are already working feverishly to add mandatory for story progression, 30+ hour combined Seatruck and Snowfox segments, a minigun which mounts to the seaglide, and mats necessary for key endgame craftables which are conveniently available exclusively through loot boxes you can earn by sending individual dev team members your nudes or earn 15 a week absolutely free with your monthly Deep Dive Club subscription

      Also, from orbit the planet looks completely covered by ocean, but once you land it’s like calf high at its highest… but there are still leviathans, for some reason. Because fuck you, that’s why.

  • Mister Neon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    60·
    29 days ago

    In their place, Striking Distance Studios CEO Steve Papoutsis (who has a major role in the development of The Callisto Protocol) has been appointed as Unknown Worlds CEO.

    I can smell the mediocrity from here.

    • atticus88th@lemmy.world
      English
      11·
      29 days ago

      Stevesie: “Ok guys… see how they made Dead Space? I want that but take out 2/3 of the content and features… and I want it rushed to production with as many bugs as possible on release!”

  • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
    35·
    29 days ago

    Does this mean in 6 years we’ll get “BelowTheWatermica Dos” by a new studio, and it will be a far better spiritual sequel?

    It’s happened only a few times when a publisher cans the developers.

  • massive_bereavement@fedia.io
    261·
    29 days ago

    One reason Subnautica came out better through the years was the relationship built between the developers and players (beta testers?) by relying on transparency and active feedback. Subnautica was a big mess during the first iterations, and a lot changed and improved thanks to this collaboration IMO.

    I remember when they explained that the game won’t have weapons and I scratched my head as I wanted to play an undersea Natural Selection game. I was wrong then, and I hope we’re all wrong and a better game (or at least similar one) comes out of this.

  • Hazmatastic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    231·
    29 days ago

    Ffs one of the few games I was actively but patiently excited for, pretty much down the drain. I can only hope they make their own studio with blackjack and hookers

  • LostWanderer@fedia.io
    20·
    29 days ago

    Oh no, this game is going to bomb so freaking hard…I can’t wait for the shitstorm that is going to go down over this!

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.worldEnglish
    212·
    29 days ago

    Unknown Worlds was already dead anyway.

    The team had already lost any chance of recreating the greatness of the first game when their sound designer made unbelievably stupid comments on social media, leaving the company no choice but to fire him.

    This is very sad because I loved their stuff ever since the Natural Selection Half-life mod.

    • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
      13·
      29 days ago

      If you’re basing that on Subnautica Below Zero, it’s worth noting that basically the whole creative team is different, not just the composer:

      Subnautica credits:

      Director(s)

      Charlie Cleveland

      Producer(s)

      Hugh Jeremy

      Designer(s)

      Charlie Cleveland

      Programmer(s)

      Charlie Cleveland
Steven An
Max McGuire
Jonas Bötel

      Artist(s)

      Cory Strader
Brian Cummings
Scott MacDonald

      Writer(s)

      Tom Jubert

      Composer(s)

      Simon Chylinski

      Subnautica Below Zero credits:

      Director(s)

      David Kalina

      Producer(s)

      Charlie Cleveland
Cory Strader
Max McGuire
Ted Gill

      Designer(s)

      Alex Ries

      Artist(s)

      Cory Strader

      Writer(s)

      Jill Murray
Brittney Morris
Zaire Lanier
Tom Jubert

      Composer(s)

      Ben Prunty
      • JTskulk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        28 days ago

        wtf I didn’t know Jubert and Prunty were on this joint! Hopefully the remaining team will make Natural Selection 3…

  • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    101·
    28 days ago

    I mean I wasn’t planning on getting sub 2 after the shitshow that was below zero, the studio is clear they didn’t understand what caused the magic in the first game, and failed at delivery in the second one.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    29 days ago

    Not gamedev but other software, going through the exact same thing (new, external CEO). Guess the axeman cometh for us all eventually.

  • Hadriscus@jlai.luEnglish
    8·
    29 days ago

    I’ll wait for more info,… but from now on I’m approaching SN2 with extreme caution