PUBG creator Brendan Greene says he's making a huge open-world game for his new project for a pretty simple reason - it's the project he wants to make.
In an interview with Greene amid the unveiling of his nails-hard survival game, Prologue, I asked whether his personal success - PUBG has sold 75 million copies and made an estimated $13 billion - gives him the confidence to continue with his grand, decade-long plan to create a 10,000km open-world.
"A little bit," he says. "It gives me a little bit of confidence in the industry. But I get asked a lot 'why aren't you just doing PUBG 2, or and FPS game?' Well, because that's not what I want to do."
There's no denying that a direct follow-up to the fifth best-selling game of all time would probably have made some decent money. There's also no denying that Greene's pipe-dream, Project Artemis, is a risk given the tumultuous state of the industry, but that doesn't seem to worry him too much.
"For me, yeah it's a risk, but I'm...I used to say stubborn, but it's more 'single-minded'. This is the game I've wanted to make, and thankfully I do have some level of standing in the industry, so people are happy to back it." Greene also notes, however, his own good fortune in being able to simple make 'the game he wants to make', rather than being forced into a sequel or a similar project.
"I do have some level of standing in the industry, so people are happy to back [this project]. I'm in quite a privileged position compared to a lot of the game devs out there. It's been a really shitty time in the industry."
"If we can do it… This will be something groundbreaking": PUBG creator Brendan Greene is five years into making a 10,000km "realistic Minecraft" – but there's still a decade to go.
