Today, Brendan Greene, aka “PLAYERUNKOWN”, the creator of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has announced that he and his development studio PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions are leaving KRAFTON, the developer and publisher of PUBG. PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions will become independent with KRAFTON holding a minority stake in the company. The studio was formed in 2021 and is exploring the systems needed to enable massive scale within open-world games.
Brendan “PLAYERUNKNOWN” Greene is known for being the father of the battle royale genre, originally designing the game mode as a mod for the ARMA series of games. He then brought the game mode to H1Z1 and eventually became the game, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds which kick started the battle royale craze and was followed by games such as Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and more including battle royale titles that are not first-person shooters.
“I’m so very grateful to everyone at PUBG and KRAFTON for taking a chance on me and for the opportunities they afforded me over the past four years,” said Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene. “Today, I’m excited to take the next step on my journey to create the kind of experience I’ve envisaged for years. Again, I’m thankful for everyone at KRAFTON for supporting my plans, and I’ll have more to reveal more about our project at a later date.”
Before becoming PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions, the studio was the “Special Projects” division of KRAFTON that was created to come up with new game ideas. One of the projects was revealed during The Game Awards 2019 called Prologue. The development team said that “Prologue is an exploration of new technologies and gameplay. Our aim with this game is to give players unique and memorable experiences, each and every time they play.” It is unclear Prologue is still in development and if it is, whether PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions is still the one developing it.