Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton have acquired Last Epoch devs Eleventh Hour Games, ahead of the latest season launching next month.
In a post on the Last Epoch forum Judd Cobler, Founder of Eleventh Hour Games, wrote "Today I’m excited to announce that Eleventh Hour Games is joining Krafton, the powerhouse behind PUBG, who shares our passion for the action RPG genre and is ready to help fuel our efforts in raising Last Epoch to new heights. With this partnership we will have the opportunity and resources to execute on our goal of creating the very best ARPG in the genre.
After speaking with dozens of potential strategic partners, Krafton clearly demonstrated that they’re aligned in helping us achieve our goals and can both enable and guide us through some of the largest upcoming challenges we’ll face as a studio. This partnership will allow us to deliver things we’ve only dreamed of previously and I’m excited to share details on those at a later date".
Cobler noted how Eleventh Hour Games will be hiring "many" roles in the "near future".
This was announced by Eleventh Hour Games the same day they released a full trailer for Season 3 of Last Epoch.
Direct Link
Related: back in September 2024, Eleventh Hour Games dropped support for their Native Linux version of Last Epoch telling people to use Proton instead.
From the Krafton press release: "We are thrilled to welcome Eleventh Hour Games into the KRAFTON family," said Maria Park, Head of Corporate Development at KRAFTON. "The team’s commitment to the ARPG community and innovative approach to game development resonated strongly with our values. Their rise from a grassroots studio to a globally renowned ARPG developer is nothing short of remarkable. We believe this acquisition lays the groundwork for diversifying KRAFTON’s genre portfolio and expanding distinctive franchise IPs. This acquisition also reaffirms our unwavering passion for great games and the teams that build them. We will always stand behind developers who put players first.”
KRAFTON acquired 100 percent of Eleventh Hour Games’ shares. The acquisition amount includes an initial consideration of USD 96 million.
Krafton are currently involved in a pretty dramatic legal spat with the original Subnautica founders, but that's clearly not putting the brakes on the rest of their publishing. Hopefully this won't one day turn into a sour situation as well. Probably not the best timing to be announcing such a thing though.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Ehvis 25 Jul 2025
After speaking with dozens of potential strategic partners, Krafton clearly demonstrated that they’re aligned in helping us achieve our goals and can both enable and guide us through some of the largest upcoming challenges we’ll face as a studio.
Translation: they paid us the most.
Leahi84 25 Jul 2025
Translation: they paid us the most.
Yep... Any bets on how long before the studio is shut down and the game abandoned? Lol
These purchases almost never end well.
Tchey 25 Jul 2025
What they did with Subnautica is very much NOT in favor of "good news"...
Also, countdown started on key people leaving. The ones excited about this, presumably.
This industry makes you really bitter, I find.
What they did with Subnautica is very much NOT in favor of "good news"...
What have they done? Yes, I'm aware of the drama... but we don't know what happened behind the scenes. Why judge them before we know the real deal?
What have they done? Yes, I'm aware of the drama... but we don't know what happened behind the scenes. Why judge them before we know the real deal?Last video I watched on the topic contained a lot of detail of the (alleged) contract between Krafton and the founders of the Subnautica studio (Unknown Worlds), and from how things went, it seems that Krafton broke quite a lot of contractually agreed upon promises and did everything they could (and, in part, weren't even allowed to do) to delay the Early Access launch to get around the contractually agreed upon 250 Million $ bonus. For example, they apparently simply stopped all support at some point, went into hiding, didn't pay contractors etc. I wonder whether we'll hear any details of the lawsuit or this will be settled outside of court.
Deadlines were missed. The game isn't ready for Early Access yet.
Maybe Krafton is in the wrong here, maybe not.
at least one of the directors just stopped working on it to make a movie
The lawsuit claimed that he worked on a movie and other projects in that regard specifically for Subnautica and on order of Krafton. Allegedly, they wanted a whole Subnautica franchise.
Deadlines were missed. The game isn't ready for Early Access yet.
How do you know that the game isn't ready and won't be in 2025? That's Krafton's perspective as far as I'm informed, and the founders claim otherwise.
It's true that we don't know the truth (I certainly don't), and it's true that "evil greedy corporation breaks contracts and gets rid of innocent founders to get out of paying a 250 million $ bonus" is the way better story than "greedy founders fucked up and were fired". Given what I have heard, though, I'm inclined to believe the founders because it seams more plausible. If Krafton had hard evidence that the founders had neglected their jobs or did them so poorly that they could all be fired just like that, it seems to me they would have used this evidence to control the narrative.
As with most stories, the truth will lie somewhere in between, just how far from which end? I am very curious to know.
Ehvis 7 days ago
As with most stories, the truth will lie somewhere in between, just how far from which end? I am very curious to know.
On the one hand you have a big money corporation and you'd have to believe that they'd do something for the good of the game instead of getting out of a 250M obligation.
On the other hand you have the leaders of a studio that pocketed several hundred million dollars when they sold the studio to Krafton with more on the way. And now you'd have to take it on faith that they remained down to earth and just as committed to the product they were working on. It'd be really impressed if they managed that.
So I think I'm just going to ignore this mess and play a game!
Orkultus 7 days ago
So I think I'm just going to ignore this mess and play a game!
Sane choice. I'm not even interested in the game. The drama just came up for me on the YouTube landing page, and sometimes, I'm weak for the catchy titles and click.
The lawsuit claimed that he worked on a movie and other projects in that regard specifically for Subnautica and on order of Krafton. Allegedly, they wanted a whole Subnautica franchise.
You can easily find the movie he was working on - a Christmas comedy, with an AI generated poster and a podcast and everything.
That said, even if Cleveland neglected his job, that makes one out of three. For the other two, I haven't found anything more substantial than general "neglecting their jobs". I find it a little hard to believe that all three of them turned into (or turned out to be) just greedy people while none of them had the awareness to say: "Guys, maybe we should actually make sure Subnautica 2 will be ready so we will get the bonus?"
But I'm open to outcome.
Some sources I no found claim that is was part of learning how to make movies in the context of possible Subnautica movies.
I think that is a ridiculous idea. That's not how movie making works. If Krafton wants a movie, they would hire somebody with experience... who knows how to write and produce and direct a movie. One of the Subnautica-folks could then work on it as a writer or consultant or executive producer.
Getting just one movie off the ground takes years (unless you slap shit together)... I have some serious doubts about all of that.
And there's one developer who talked about them (plural) - and not just one guy leaving. They didn't work on the game anymore and they just trusted the devs to set the direction.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1m0u476/a_subnautica_2_developer_started_talking_about/
R Daneel Olivaw 6 days ago
To see this news is just soooooooo disheartening.
Goodbye Last Epoch, you were amazing while you were with us. We will remember you fondly
To see this news is just soooooooo disheartening.
Goodbye Last Epoch, you were amazing while you were with us. We will remember you fondly emoji
Why?
R Daneel Olivaw 4 days ago
PR: https://press.krafton.com/KRAFTON-ACHIEVE-RECORD-HIGH-REVENUE-IN-THE-FIRST-HALF-OF-2025
Some of my lowlights:
"plans to deepen player engagement with high-profile collaborations, including France’s luxury carmaker Bugatti and global K-pop sensation aespa"
"5-year plan to build major global IP, the company has launched a pipeline of 13 new game projects"
"KRAFTON is also investing in AI innovation to shape the future of gaming."
"In April, the company acquired Neptune, strengthening its position in the global adtech space"
So let's see, let me see if I can summarize this:
1) nonsensical collabs with luxury cars ... for some reason?
2) 13 new games in 5 years. hello shovelware!
3) aggressively pursuing ai slop.
4) aims to strengthen advertising.
I can only guess that Eleventh Hour got a huge offer from Krafton, but it REALLY makes me so sad they took it.
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