PlayerUnknown

Brendan Greene (born 29 March 1976), better known as PlayerUnknown, is an Irish video game developer. He is best known for his work on battle royale video game '' PUBG: Battlegrounds''. He left active development on the game to form PUBG Special Projects and PlayerUnknown Productions in March 2019.

Career

In 2013, Greene was living in Brazil as an event photographer and freelance website designer. While trying to save up enough money to buy a plane ticket back to Ireland, he found himself playing video games, particularly the open world survival ''DayZ'' mod for '' Arma 2''. He modded the game himself, working under the pseudonym "PlayerUnknown". After experimenting with last-man-standing gameplay, in 2013, he eventually released a mod called ''DayZ: Battle Royale'', named after the 2000 Japanese action film '' Battle Royale''.

''PlayerUnknown's Battle Royale'' (''Arma 3'' mod)

After the release of ''Arma 3'', Greene started working on a modification for the game, named ''PlayerUnknown's Battle Royale''. The mod followed the same basic last-man standing principle of the ''Battle Royale DayZ'' mod, while introducing some features like the airplane that dropped players across a wider terrain and an online leaderboard.

''H1Z1: Battle Royale''

After ''DayZ: Battle Royale'' and ''PlayerUnknown's Battle Royale'' achieved success, Greene was recruited by Sony Online Entertainment as an advisor for the development of a battle royale game mode for ''H1Z1'', recreating the basic elements of ''DayZ: Battle Royale''. ''H1Z1'' released into early access in 2015 with a battle royale mode now known as '' H1Z1: King of the Kill''.

''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds''

In 2016, '' H1Z1: King of the Kill'' caught the attention of South Korean game company Krafton, which reached out to Greene about creating his own game based on his previous work. Greene moved to Korea to join Krafton as a creative director, working on the game that became ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'', which Greene described as "that sort of final realization of my vision".

PUBG Special Projects / PlayerUnknown Productions

In March 2019, Greene left development at PUBG and moved to Amsterdam to form PUBG Special Projects. Greene's vision was to develop and release a trilogy of games: ''Preface'' (released), ''Prologue'' (under development), and ''Artemis''.

Preface and Prologue

In December 2019, Greene announced a new game called ''Prologue'' under a new studio PlayerUnknown Productions, described as "an exploration of new technologies and gameplay."

Greene announced in August 2021 that he was leaving Krafton while maintaining his PlayerUnknown Productions in Amsterdam. He stated that the studio would not work on the battle royale genre but something more experimental. The new studio continued work on the ''Prologue'' game.

On 5 December 2024, PlayerUnknown Productions released ''Preface'' on Steam, "an immersive tech demo showcasing Melba", an engine developed in-house.

As of 8 February 2025, a playtest for Prologue is underway and another is scheduled for Marc

Artemis

Artemis is intended to be "the culmination of in-house technology that could host millions of players inside large-scale worlds at once."

References

{{Reflist

External links

PlayerUnknown Productions

Video game developers
Living people
1976 births
Irish video game designers
Video game directors