Full disclaimer I am not a lawyer nor have I ever had any past in legal stuff, but to be fair could probably do better than Chat GPT. So that is a title one situation that has burned trust, money, and if AI’s reputation wasn’t already on fire it has now been thrown to the core of the earth burning even worse than before.

So I would understand if this situation was hard to follow and while I will be providing a gist of the situation Bellara News and Mujin have put together more comprehensive videos on the subject and I would recommend watching them before trying to decipher what this is. This starts with the release of Subnautica a marine exploration game that managed to break 1 million in sales really good for an indie game.

Now, this is where Krafton came in but who are they? Where did this company come from? Krafton is a South Korean publisher that often buys smaller development studios and Indie game studios they are known for publishing PUBG and INZOI. Krafton saw the potential in Subnautica and the potential sequel and thus posed a deal: buying 100% of the company that made the game and if certain milestones were hit during Subnautica 2’s development they get a substantial amount of money. so an estimated $750,000 was paid to acquire the studio, but Krafton didn’t want to pay the additional $250,000 that was part of the deal if Subnuatica 2 was ready for early access in 2025.

Krafton decided they didn’t want to pay and the CEO tried delaying the game as much as possible, firing three of the games leads, breaking many clauses in their agreement, and worse taking advice from Chat GPT after it said that getting out of paying was difficult and possibly illegal Krafton’s CEO asked the Chat bot for ways anyway attempting to destroy the devs reputations, a failed take over of the company, and delaying to 2026. All of this led to a lawsuit and Krafton’s once okay reputation (honestly, they really never had a good reputation) in the dirt. Now I was planning to cover this situation when it first started, but honestly everything I just told you happened within three weeks and every time I wrote something about it something else equally insane would happen which led to a loop of writing something then scraping it to update then scraping it again as more information came out.

It seems Krafton will have to pay the Subnautica devs far more and after Krafton getting sued again after they put a release date for the full game without asking the trust is gone and I would not be surprised if the devs found a new publisher and distanced themselves only doing what is left in the contract then leaving. Now Krafton has to pay the original amount, legal fees, lost the IP, damages, and who knows what else.

Bellular News. “Krafton’s CEO Got What He Deserved: The Judge Went Hard. Youtube, uploaded by Bellular News, March 26 2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StOG9ZiLXw4&t=43s.

Mujin. “How to Lose a Fortune by Trusting ChatGPT as your Lawyer – The Krafton VS Subnautica 2 Disaster.” Youtube, uploaded by Mujin, May 3, 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGaUWKyNkag.