“PUBG” Creator Brendan Greene Leaves Krafton to Found Independent Studio

Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, best known as the creator of PUBG: Battlegrounds (formerly known as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds), becomes independent. His studio PlayerUnknown Productions was born out of PUBG owner Krafton, who will own a minority stake in the company.

“I am very grateful to everyone at PUBG and Krafton for taking my chances and the opportunities they have given me over the past four years, ”Greene said in a statement. “Today, I’m excited to take the next step in my journey to create the kind of experience I’ve envisioned for years. Again, I’m grateful to everyone at Krafton for supporting my plans, and will have more to reveal about our project at a later date.

Greene and moved from Seoul (where Krafton is based) to Amsterdam to lead the PUBG Special Projects division. PlayerUnknown Productions “is exploring the systems needed to enable massive scale in open world games,” according to a press release. The only game listed on the studio’s website is Prologue, which Greene released an atmospheric teaser for in late 2019, so it looks like he took this game with him.

Greene’s departure from Krafton is notable, given that he’s effectively the father of the battle royale genre that has dominated the gaming landscape for the past several years. Before PUBG, Greene rose to prominence as a developer of Battle Royale mods for WEAPON 2 and H1Z1.