Brendan Greene’s next game is a blockchain-powered metaverse title
“It won’t be PlayerUnknown’s Metaverse, just as it isn’t Tim Berners-Lee’s Internet. It must be owned by everyone.”
–PlayerUnknown Productions’ founder Brendan Greene
Brendan Greene made a name for himself with the creation of the Battle Royale shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (now known as PUBG: Battlegrounds). As the game itself has grown in popularity over the years, Greene left parent company Krafton in 2021 to found his own studio, PlayerUnknown Productions.
Greene recently spoke with Hit Points’ Nathan Brown about the studio’s next project known as Artemis (part of a larger franchise that begins with the tech demo Prologue), where players will be able to create anything they like in a large, open world.
It was during that interview that he quietly confirmed Artemis would be a blockchain game, or at least incorporate blockchain technology. “I was fascinated by this idea of digital spaces, places where there are no real rules, but a set of systems that you can use,” said Green of Artemis. “It fascinated me, and still does. I never considered just walking away.”
Blockchain developers often sell the technology by promising the potential to allow any user to contribute to the development of a game. Build a Rocket Boy’s Everywhere, which was showcased this summer at Gamescom, used similar language while dancing around saying it was a blockchain title.
Blockchain being used to create “new play experiences” is another selling point for the technology, although developers have shown visible skepticism that this is the case.
For Greene, the new experiences can only take shape if the platforms are truly open to everyone. “The only way this exists is if it’s made for everyone, and it’s not made for money.”
That said, Greene confirmed it Artemis want an in-game that he believed players should be able to “extract value” by selling in-game assets to other players. But unlike other developers with blockchain ambitions, the main focus is on creating a digital space for players to inhabit.
“I’m just going to do what I’m going to do,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter if it’s called the metaverse. I don’t care what people want to call it.”
Metaverses have just as much skepticism among developers; but that’s balanced out by the idea that it’s seen as an evolution of what the games are already trying to do, creating deeper immersion. While Greene keeps his focus on creating Artemis open to all, the reality of blockchain’s often fluctuating status may temper his ambitions.
