“I’ve done battle royale, it’s time to try something else.”
Brendan Greene, the PlayerUnknown in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, has recently discussed his decision to stop working directly on PUBG and how he doesn’t see himself making PUBG 2 as, according to him, he’s “done battle royale, it’s time to try something else.”
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz at GDC, Greene opened up about how the last two years have been “an insane ride,” with some highlights including the incredible success of PUBG, securing a temporary exclusive deal with Xbox, and changing the gaming landscape and paving the way for other battle royales like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode.
Speaking of these other competitors to PUBG, Greene states that he loves “seeing the growth of the battle royale genre.”
“It’s been wonderful — and there’s more coming,” Greene says. “It’s a good genre that has space to grow — last man standing deathmatches, there are so many different takes you can have on that. I’m still waiting for a For Honor battle royale, something with big, big knives.”
Greene went on to discuss his decision to move on from working on PUBG directly and how a big part of that decision was the strength of the team working on the battle royale title.
“They have the reins of battle royale, they know what PUBG and our battle royale is, they understand what we want from the game and what we want to do to it moving forwards, so I saw it as a good chance for me to announce Special Projects.”
PUBG Special Projects will be Greene’s next adventure and while the whole project still very much in the early stages, it allows Greene to have the freedom to create as he did when he was coming up with the mods that would eventually lead to PUBG.
As for what this new game would be, Greene wants to “explore online experiences and how to connect people in ways that we haven’t really done before,” which appears to indicate it may not be as competitive as PUBG prides itself on.
Perhaps most interesting, he revealed that he doesn’t “really intend to make PUBG 2,” and he feels that it is time to be creative and work on something new.
“The last man standing concept is great, but I’ve done that,” Greene said. “I don’t really intend to make PUBG 2. I’ve done battle royale, it’s time to try something else. There are ideas about how we connect to people and how we provide the different experiences I have.”
After creating a mega-hit like PUBG, some would feel immense pressure to create another “Next Big Thing,” and Greene feels “so lucky to work with PUBG Corp.” as they aren’t pressuring him to do so. They want him to experiment and create without any added pressure.
“We’re not doing this for profit,” Greene explains. “Eventually someday, we may do, but right now it’s just about having time to explore. There is no deadline here, this is us with a few years to play. Gaming and the industry has become so hard, this is a very lucky thing to have. We can genuinely explore and be curious for some time.”
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who can’t wait to see and play PlayerUnknown’s next games. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst.
