About

Unknown Worlds is an independent game company in San Francisco, CA (team and office videos). Our goal is simple, but not easy – to unite the world through play.

Previously, we worked on titles such as Titan Quest, Empire Earth, Lair, GRAW 2, Mass Effect, Bioshock Infinite, Firefall & Star Citizen.

Technical Support | Press

Getting in contact

Almost the entire Unknown Worlds team is available on Twitter. Twitter is a great way to get in touch with any of us: From animators, to co-founders, to company presidents, and more.

See all our accounts on the UWEDev list.

Prefer email? You can also use our media@unknownworlds.com address for influencer, press, and media questions.

Business-y questions, such as those regarding distribution of Unknown Worlds games, may be directed to business@unknownworlds.com.

 

Please don't contact me for support - it will be ignored. Instead, use the instructions at the top of this page. Most problems can be fixed by following our Subnautica trouble shooting guide.

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    • Charlie "Flayra" Cleveland

    Charlie is the Game Director and CEO of Unknown Worlds. When not working on video games, he can be found making board games, making pizza or practicing his Italian in a medieval city. He occasionally speaks at the Game Developer’s Conference and writes about game design on his personal blog.

    • Max McGuire

    While still in high school Max worked as the assistant to Dr. Benoit Mandelbrot at IBM Research. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 2001 with a B.S. in Mathematics and a double major in Computer Science, Max joined Iron Lore Entertainment (Game Developer Choice Best New Studio) as the first employee. While at Iron Lore Entertainment, Max served as the Lead Engine Programmer and held a key role in developing the technology and tools behind their first two titles, Titan Quest and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.

    • CORY “SQUEAL LIKE A PIG” STRADER

    Art Director Cory attended the Massachusetts College of Art, majoring in Illustration. He worked at Stainless Steel Studios as a digital artist for over five years doing 3D modeling, texturing and concept work on Empire Earth, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World and Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War. He then worked as Senior Texture Artist and Concept Art on Lair and several unannounced titles at Factor Five. He and Charlie started working on Natural Selection together in August of 2000 and his artwork has been featured several times in Spectrum and Expose.

    • BRIAN "CHOPS" CUMMINGS

    Brian (Alpha) joined the team in late 2009 after graduating from the Art Institute of California San Francisco. Before moving here, he worked as a contract 3D Artist on two published PC titles in Birmingham, Alabama. Initially hired to help with managing the art pipeline, Brian now fills the gap between artists and engine. He has also worked as the editor for several Natural Selection 2 cinematics including the Fade Reveal, Lerk Reveal and Gorge Belly Slide video.

    • Lilly Baker

    Lilly hails from Nihilistic software in Novato, where she was the first point of contact for the studio and handled administrative and managerial aspects for the company. She loves to handle payroll, HR functions, organize wrap parties and generally help to make our office an amazing place to work. Lilly hates sunshine so we’ve found the darkest place of our office to keep a smile on her face. She is the new Keeper of the Onos.

    • Andreas Urwalek

    Andi is a game programmer from Austria. In his earlier days he spent some time at the same gym as Schwarzenegger, but decided instead for a career as a game programmer, in his basement. He worked on Natural Selection 2 at first as a volunteer playtester and soon moved ahead to become a developer. Later he moved on to work on Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero.

    • Michael "Olmy" Schouten

    Michael was originally a Natural Selection 1 map contributor. In 2007 he graduated from Glasgow University, and worked as a functionality tester before joining the off-site team in 2010. He was hired as a level designer and has contributed towards several Natural Selection 2 maps. Currently he is developing environments for Subnautica.

    • Oliver "Dux" Hobbs

    Oli joined the offsite team in June 2009 as a mapper for Natural Selection 2. He spends his time complaining, being cynical and drinking tea.

    • Colin Knueppel

    He is a nerdy farm kid who turned into an animator / tech. He has worked on Mass Effect 1 cinematics, Bioshock Infinite in-game sequences, most of the Natural Selection 2 rigging and currently animation lead on Subnautica. He enjoys walks in the park and long-shot FPS melee kills.

    • Lukas "AceDude" Nowaczek

    Lukas is another employee with his roots in the community. Since he joined us in October 2012 he works on all kinds of web applications and websites that improve workflow in UWE or serve our players. He also keeps all kinds of servers healthy, and coordinates translation process for our games. He spends most of his free time learning new stuff, playing (too many) games or reading books. After he failed at his journey to find the perfect craft beer, he got into amateur racing.

    • Scott "Obraxis" MacDonald

    Scott hails originally from Carlisle UK, close to the Scottish border. Having worked in Film & TV, he now works in Games remotely from the South Wales, UK. He can be often found frequenting shops late at night in his daily pursuit of yet more coffee, to fuel his typical animator caffeine habit.

    • Sylvain Hel

    Sylvain joined Ubisoft Paris as a 3d environment artist on GRAW 2 before enjoying particles and visual effects on Redsteel 2, Raving Rabbids TV Party and Ghost Recon Future Soldier. Looking for new experiences with indie studios he started to work on Natural Selection 2 late 2011.

    • Brandt Beach

    Brandt graduated from Madison College, with an associates degree in Animation and Concept development. He joined the offsite team in the summer of 2012 working on animations for Natural Selection 2.

    • Louis Karim

    As soon as he graduated from Engineering school, Louis decided to go down a more artistic path. He started by learning character modelling on his first job, but realized that animation was his true calling soon enough. He attended Animation Mentor, and since graduating has worked as an animator on movies, tv series and commercials, in countries including Singapore, Russia, Lebanon and Bahrain. He is currently an animator and rigger on Subnautica.

    • Slava "slice3d" Sedovich

    Engineering lead. Prior: Indie developer (Unity Engine), Technical Artist at Unigine, Alien Shooter / Zombie Shooter game series developer at Sigma Team.

    • Scott Thunelius

    Scott is a coder and 3D artist. He’s spent most of his career working on MMORPGs and now happily resides deep in the underwater landscape of Subnautica’s codebase. When not making games he’s playing music and systematically attempting put every BBQ joint to be found in Texas out of business with his insatiable love of brisket.

    • Ted Gill

    President Prior to joining Unknown Worlds, Ted co-founded and served as CTO of Huddler (an online community platform company) until the company’s acquisition by Fandom in May of 2014. He then served as VP of Engineering and Chief Product Officer for Fandom until August of 2018. Ted attended Virginia Tech and received a B.S. in Mathematics.

    • Mariah 'Mar' Gutteter

    Mariah received her Game Development degree in 2011 from Full Sail and started her career at 38 Studios. After a stint in the casino gaming industry, she returned to make video games with Unknown Worlds in November 2019.
    She currently resides in northern Nevada, and when not at her desk can be found in the mountains, at the lake, or powerlifting in the gym.

    • Liam "PogoP" Tart

    Liam started out making maps for Half-life mods as a teenager, before deciding to study games design at Staffordshire University in the UK. He spent a year working at Frontier in Cambridge before being approached by Charlie to join the NS2 team. After a year, he left to work for Creative Assembly and then Sony (And then Creative Assembly again…), working on games such as Alien Isolation and Halo Wars 2, before re-joining the Unknown Worlds team to help ship Subnautica and Below Zero.

    • Kiel McDonald

    Kiel has always had a passion for creating levels.  After graduating with a Game Art and Design degree he got his start in the game industry at Red 5 Games building open world environments.  Quickly realizing the AAA industry was not a fit, Kiel began working with smaller independent teams.  Joining Unknown Worlds in 2016 Kiel has continued his passion of building levels working on Subnautica and Below Zero.
    • Benjamin "Mitsu" Lutz

    Working as a game/level designer since 2007, Ben landed at Unknown Worlds in 2019 to pursue his interest in creating thrilling open worlds and competitive games. He loves building (fun)ctional worlds and thinking about new multiplayer concepts. As a fan of “full loot pvp” games, he spends a lot of time reading patch notes, theorycrafting, testing ideas with teammates, and secretly hoping to creating new “metas” for his favorite games.

    • John Veneron

    Prior to Unknown Worlds, John was a producer and lead at Harmonix, director of production at Runic Games, and an educator and game development coach at the Rochester Institute of Technology. John is passionate about making game development inclusive and safe for everyone. His hobbies include woodworking, cooking, and music. He currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

    • Arwen Keys

    Arwen Keys is from the Bay Area, in California.
    Named after an elf from, “The Lord of the Rings”, Arwen – somewhat unsurprisingly – has made a career as a Video Game Entomologist.
    A seasoned veteran of the game industry, Arwen started their journey in the lands of Norrath (EverQuest), starting as a Game Master, and quickly becoming a Subject Matter Expert, and eventually an Apprentice Game Designer.
    Upon leaving Norrath, Arwen took on the role of bug-hunter (ie, QA Tester), fighting their way through Mordor (Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor), delving into the criminal underworld of New Bordeaux (Mafia III), and sojourning for a time on the Sword Coast (Neverwinter Online), before finally diving into the oceans of Planet 4546b at Unknown Worlds. In their wake Arwen has left nothing but an ichor-strewn path of bug-destruction.
    *Deep below the surface of planet 4546b, Arwen pulls out a water-proof pencil and starts scribbling a new report on their next victim* Dun, dun, dun!

    • Artyom O'Rielly

    Living in Canada, Artyom started his career at UWE as a community playtester for Subnautica. Before that, his experience in the games industry stemmed from passion project mods for games like Skyrim and Fallout. He spends his free time learning new skills, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and putting small hats on his pet hamster.

    • Jessica Damerst

    Jess first joined the team for the Machinery Update on Subnautica. She marks her time at UWE not in years but in updates because she got her start at the company in making the update sites. Since then, she has participated in 3 launches, 24+ updates, and so much more. She graduated from the University of Central Florida Digital Media – Visual Language program. In a past life, she was a Community Manager for Turtle Rock Studios (Evolve) and EA (Need for Speed). Her specialties include release management, web development, data science, graphic design, videography, and Brazilian Jiujitsu.

    • Chris "IronHorse" Gates

    After many years of honing his game development skills working as QA Lead and VFX artist on Natural Selection 2, as well as assisting in the early days of Subnautica, he has joined the team full time as QA Lead for Moonbreaker in early 2022. An extrovert who is detail oriented and extremely passionate about whatever he’s involved in, he aims an unyielding tenacity for shaping a product into the best it possibly can be. Just don’t get him started talking about game design, balance, or bees! He currently resides in Ventura County, CA.

    • Mark "Dutch" Verkerk

    Mark is a Dutch Technical Artist who been living in the UK since 2010. He started his professional career as a 3D artist back in 2008 and made the switch to technical artist formally in 2012. “I just love the combination of fascinating problems, technical and artistic challenges and exciting opportunities you get when making games, there is never a dull day!” Having been a big fan of the Subnautica game since its Early Access he is ecstatic to have joined the team in August 2022.

    • Jón "Nonni" Bjarnason

    Jón has been building computer games since the latter part of the previous century after university where he studied physics and computer science. He was the Technical Director on the Eve Online MMO for much of his career but is a duct-tape programmer who dabbles in everything tech-related. He is currently working as Lead Engineer on the next title in the Subnautica Universe. In his free time Jón enjoys pen-and-paper roleplaying, board-games and hiking around Iceland.

    • Fabricio "sisso" Brasiliense

    Natural from Florianópolis, Brazil. Started programming on C at 14 years old. From there, many different programming languages and paradigms. Most of his career was on distributed backend services with some few adventures on game development.