Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene Steps Down From PUBG Team

This week, PUBG Corp and Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene himself announced that the creator of the battle royal genre would be stepping away from a direct development role on PUBG. Moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands, Greene will head up a research and development program lovingly dubbed “PUBG Special Projects”. He will also retain a strong relationship with the team continuously working on PUBG as a consultant, which makes sense, as his name is in the title.

"It's been an incredible journey and our game has reached heights I never thought possible. Seeing the game grow into what it is today has been a dream come true and I can't thank our fans and the incredible team at PUBG Corporation enough." Greene told Eurogamer regarding his departure from Seoul.”

The Father of Battle Royale

While his most recently devised video game might be the stuff of legend and is still played by millions of people across the globe today, many are still unaware that PlayerUnknown is actually a person. It’s not the name of a video game studio or publisher.

Greene based his game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on his very popular ArmA2 mod titled “Battle Royale”. Once the DayZ developers put out their own standalone battle royale title in H1Z1 to major fan acclaim back in 2016 (with internal consultation from PU himself), Greene knew that he had something great on his hands. So he worked hard to build a game and even a studio that bears his name, launching PUBG in March of 2017.

Greene’s namesake, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, is commonly considered the second major title to help popularize the battle royale genre of video games. Growing on the success of the previously launched H1Z1, PUBG took the core gaming world's adoration for the genre to the next level. On top of that, the inherently competitive nature of the battle royale gameplay made it a shoo-in for an Esports scene.

But it was truly platforms like Twitch, and gamers like DrDisRespect, Shroud, and Ninja that helped elevate the title (and the genre) into mass hysteria. It never quite reached the fervor that Fortnite would later peak at, but then again, it came out well before the battle royale builder from Epic was even a thought.

The consistent love/hate relationship between PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and the fans hasn’t done a ton of positive work in growing the public’s trust in the developers, and this move doesn’t do a whole lot to help that cause. Formerly known as Ginno Games, the internal Bluehole development team now referred to as PUBG Corp has a rocky hill to climb.

What's Next?

In that same Eurogamer interview, Greene stated that “the last five years of my life have been all about battle royale” which leads us to believe that whatever “projects” and “research” Greene and his newly designed team are about to embark on has nothing to do with the battle royale genre. It might not even be a first-person shooter.

It will be exciting when the world finally gets a glimpse at what this new squad, helmed by PU, can accomplish with a little distance from their original project.

What do you hope the new PUBG Special Projects team cooks up?