 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2001; 24 years ago (2001) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
Key people | |
| Products | Video games |
| Parent | Krafton (2021–present) |
| Website | www.unknownworlds.com |
Unknown Worlds Entertainment is an Americanvideo game developer based inSan Francisco. The studio is best known for theNatural Selection andSubnautica series. In October 2021, the studio was acquired by South Korean video game developerKrafton.
Unknown Worlds was formed in May 2001 by Charlie Cleveland and began life as a group of developers responsible for the development of the high-profile freemod forHalf-Life,Natural Selection. The success ofNatural Selection convinced Cleveland to start work on a commercial sequel to the game:Natural Selection 2. Soon after, Cleveland founded Unknown Worlds Entertainment as a commercial computer games studio.
Although thecasual games market is not the intended direction of Unknown Worlds,Zen of Sudoku, a casual puzzle computer game based on the popular logic puzzleSudoku, was created in November 2006 in order to generate revenue towards funding the development ofNatural Selection 2.[1] Charlie Cleveland, one of the developers of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, cited casual games development as a "last option" for funding this sequel, having been unwilling to sacrifice control of the company to external investors.[2]
In October 2006, Max McGuire became the studio's co-founder, having previously worked atIron Lore Entertainment as Lead Engine Programmer. McGuire became the Technical Director of UWE and development ofNatural Selection 2 began in earnest. Max and Charlie then attracted a group of angel investors including Richard Kain, Matthew Le Merle,Ira Rothken and Colin Wiel to back the company after a meeting at GDC in San Francisco. A year later, Unknown Worlds releasedDecoda as a commercial debugger for theLua programming language. This application was created to aid with development ofNatural Selection 2, whose game code was largely being written in Lua.[3]
Later on in development ofNatural Selection 2, the studio announced it had changed engine from theSource engine to their own proprietary engine developed in-house. After consulting their fanbase on a possible name for their new engine, it was finally named the Evolution engine. Later, it transpired that the name Evolution was already taken and Spark was chosen as the name for the engine.[4]
In June 2008, Cory Strader was hired as art director.[5] Strader had been a previous key member of the development team forNatural Selection. In May 2009, Unknown Worlds began taking pre-orders for standard and special edition versions ofNatural Selection 2.Natural Selection 2 was released on 31 October 2012.[6]
Perfect World acquired a 40% stake in Unknown Worlds Entertainment in August 2011 forCN¥10,803,330. It raised this to acontrolling interest in February 2013 by acquiring a further 20% for CN¥5,098,956.[7] During its 2019fiscal year, Perfect World sold the majority of its shares in Unknown Worlds to an undisclosed entity.[8] It sold the remainder by August 2021.[9]
In October 2021, South Korean video game developerKrafton, known for having developedPlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds andTERA, announced that it would acquire Unknown Worlds, and that it would continue to operate as an independent game studio.[10][11]
Subnautica 2, a sequel toSubnautica andSubnautica: Below Zero, is scheduled to be released in early access in 2025 for Windows PC and Xbox Series X/S platforms.[12]
In August 2011, the Group made an investment of RMB10,803,330 in Unknown Worlds to acquire 40% of its equity interest. In February 2013, the Group started to consolidate Unknown Worlds as it acquired additional 20% equity interest in Unknown Worlds for RMB5,098,956 and obtained control of Unknown Worlds.
A subsidiary ofKrafton | |
| Natural Selection series | |
| Subnautica series | |
| Other games | |
