Developer Brendan Greene revolutionized gaming with the creation of PUBG. His new game is supposed to represent the whole planet.
Who is the person you are talking about? Brendan Greene is one of the most important people when talking about how gaming has evolved over the past 10 years. If you’re wondering who is responsible for the numerous “Battle Royale” shooters that have sprung up between 2016 and 2020, then his name will certainly come up.
Greene was the chief developer responsible for PUBG. Years earlier, he developed a Battle Royale mod for DayZ and helped create H1Z1: King of the Hill (via vice). In doing so, he had a significant influence on gaming as we experience it today, from which “Battle Royale” shooters like Fortnite, CoD Warzone and Apex Legends have become indispensable.
PUBG remains one of the top five most played games on Steam today, averaging 220,000 players on the platform as of February 2023 (via SteamCharts).
What is Greene currently working on? Greene now has his own development studio, PlayerUnknown Productions. He is currently working with his team on “Project Artemis”.
Project Artemis is a kind of game whose central element is a huge, procedurally generated planet, Greene reveals in an interview to the English-language online magazine PC Gamer.
What kind of game is this? Greene gives PC Gamer numerous insights into the project, which he himself does not want to call a “game”, although there should be gameplay elements such as survival mechanics, exploration and a kind of civilization mode.
However, according to Greene, the focus of the “game” is not only on survival. Players should not be locked into one particular activity or genre. You should be able to do whatever you want on the planet. Greene is primarily concerned with creating the space for activities.
As for the backstory, Greene reveals that Project Artemis is set about 500 years in the future. At a time when humanity had not been on earth for over 300 years. Comic books are planned for more details about the lore.
PlayerUnknown Productions is also working on a Project Artemis tech demo called “prologue” that will test the tools used in the development of Project Artemis. You can see a first teaser here:
Prologue (Project Artmis Tech Demo) teaser
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Is there life on the planet? Greene tells PC Gamer that he wants AI companions and wild animals for his planet. You should also share the planet with other players.
Judging by Greene’s description, the AI companions are reminiscent of Kelvin, the helpful NPC from the survival hit Sons of the Forest. So you should be able to assign the AI helpers various tasks such as chopping wood, scientific work or metal construction.
With the wild animals, Greene also imagines that the actions of the players could influence the population of the different creatures and it becomes a living world. As an example, he cites a territorial deer overpopulation that occurs because players have hunted down all the bears in the region.
Greene’s ideas regarding Project Artemis sound very ambitious. One or the other could remind of Star Citizen. The alpha launch there just recently went haywire.
Star Citizen Apologizes for Alpha Launch: “We Expected Hiccups, But That Wasn’t Acceptable”