Irish game designer Brendan Greene, primarily known for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and tightly connected to the whole battle royale genre, has announced he’s leaving Krafton entirely. Instead, the developer opening his own independent studio under surprise heading PlayerUnknown Productions.
In 2016, Greene joined the Korean company Bluehole (which later changed its name to Krafton) to continue working on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Three years later, the original creator left the PUBG team to open his own division at the company, which aimed to explore the possibilities of “interaction and connection within the game space.”
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Now things will change even more drastically for Greene, as the developer will head up his new independent Amsterdam-based company. His studio PlayerUnknown Productions will be “exploring the systems needed to enable massive scale within open-world games.”
According to the game designer, this is “the next step on [his] journey to create the kind of experience [he’s] envisaged for years.” Greene emphasized he’s very grateful to everyone at Krafton Game Union for supporting his plans.
Greene said he would maintain a relationship with Krafton, which will hold a minority stake in his new venture. However, the developer has no intentions to work on the battle royale genre anymore. His studio will reveal more about the next project called Prologue at a later date.
As you may expect, such a transfer won’t have any effect whatsoever on PUBG, which has been doing fine without him for the last two years. Last month, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has been officially rebranded as PUBG: Battlegrounds, indicating that Krafton is trying to steer away from the original creator.
There are several PUBG spin-offs in the works right now, including The Callisto Protocol — the upcoming horror game from the Dead Space creator Glen Schofield, set in the PUBG universe after some 300 years. Striking Distance developer is working closely with PUBG Corp to expand on the game’s lore.
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