Brendan Greene (born March 29, 1976), better known as PlayerUnknown, is an Irish video game developer. He is best known for his work on '' 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 Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

working as an event

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

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 began to mod the game himself, working under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

"PlayerUnknown". After experimenting with last-man-standing gameplay, in 2013, he eventually released a mod called " DayZ: Battle Royale", named after the 2000 Japanese sci-fi 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 also introducing some new features like the airplane that dropped players across a wider spread of terrain and an online leaderboard.

H1Z1: BATTLE ROYAL

After ''DayZ: Battle Royale'' and ''PlayerUnknown's Battle Royale'' achieved success within the '' Arma 2'' and Arma 3 Community, Greene was recruited by

Sony Online Entertainment Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...

as an advisor for the development of a battle royale game mode for

H1Z1 ''Z1 Battle Royale'' (formerly ''H1Z1'' and ''King of the Kill'') is a battle royale game developed and published by Daybreak Game Company. The game's development began after the original ''H1Z1'' was spun off into two separate projects in early ...

, recreating the basic elements of ''DayZ: Battle Royale''. ''H1Z1'' released into

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alph ...

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 Krafton Inc. ( ko, 주식회사 컴퍼니 크래프톤) is a South Korean video game holding company based in Bundang-gu, Seongnam. It was created in November 2018 to serve as the parent company for Bluehole, founded by Chang-Byung-gyu in Seoul ...

, 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 A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...

, working on the game that became ''

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Royale'' (2000), is based ...

'', which Greene described as "that sort of final realization of my vision".

PUBG Special Projects / PlayerUnknown Productions

In March 2019, Greene left development on PUBG and moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

to form PUBG Special Projects. 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 be working on the battle royale genre but something more experimental. The new studio continued work on the ''Prologue'' game.

References

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