Battle Royale has been one of the biggest talking points in gaming for the past couple of years. Most of the genre’s rise in popularity can be attributed toPlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a title original designed as a mod from Brendan Greene, PlayerUnknown himself. Even withbattle royale’s influence across the industry, with teams ranging from smaller indie developers to the AAA ecosystem of high-profile franchises taking a chance with the last man standing multiplayer approach, Greene’s ambitions appear to now be pulling him away from the competitive online experience he’s helped to build.
Speaking at GDC last month, Brendan Greene revealed he’s now working on another game other thanPlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The game in discussion, given its infancy of pre-production, doesn’t have any details Greene felt were worth discussing yet. He did point out, however, that the game will certainlynot be a sequel toPUBG,the battle royale game that became more popular than he ever thought would, earning over $11 million in its opening weekend.
WithPUBGnow out of early access across PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, Greene says he feels comfortable with the team at PUBG Corp’s ability to maintain and improve on the technical issues which’ve become more noticeable inPUBGover time, especially after the release ofFortnite,Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’sown battle royale mode,Blackout, and Respawn Entertainment’sApex Legends, which launched this past February. It makes sense for PUBG Corp and Brendan Greene to not try and rush out a sequel title also, something Xaviant Games fell victim to when it tried to stealth launchThe Culling 2last summer and backfired greatly.
Even with a more competitive market where battle royale games are releasing more frequently,PlayerUnknown’s Battlegroundsended last year on a high note PUBG Corp and Bluehole should be proud of. After seeing a steady decline in concurrent users throughout the course of 2018, December saw the game’s first increase in users in almost a year on Steam.
Not long after, Microsoft’s timed-exclusive window withPlayerUnknown’s BattleGroundsended, and the full game was able to release on PlayStation 4. With Sony’s PS4 userbase slowly approach the 100 million sales milestone for consoles, more potential players further add reason to why PUBG Corp doesn’t need to invest in a sequel, and why Brendan Greene can now move on to other passion projects.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegroundsis available for Android, iOS, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
