Sounds a lot like the kerbal space program 2 pathway. And we all remember how that ended.

Hasn't subnautica 2 been out for a while?

I was going to be optimistic and say that maybe it's an ousting of toxic leadership, but I looked up Unknown Worlds and they were bought 4 years ago by a publicly traded company 🫤

The creative direction has undoubtedly been set for the past few years already if it's going early access later this year. While it likely should reflect poorly on the corporation and whether or not it's worth giving them money for the product, it likely doesn't mean too much on the direction of the game itself.