First thing I remember hearing was Krafton announcing that Subnautica would be a live service multiplayer game, and then Unknown Worlds coming right in behind saying No the hellfuck it's not! It's going to be a cooperative multiplayer game that players host locally, and we'll be doing an early access campaign with continuing updates after the 1.0 release just like we did with Subnautica 1.

It has spiraled from there.