I discover Prologue, the new survival sport from PlayerUnknown Productions, an enchanting undertaking. It takes survival gameplay again to fundamentals, but hosts it in thousands and thousands of giant, life-like maps created with revolutionary machine studying tech. That juxtaposition is attention-grabbing in and of itself, however so too is the motive why Prologue was inbuilt the first place. Certain, studio head Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ Greene, the creator of PUBG, needs it to be an pleasing, community-driven sport, however it’s additionally sport primary in a trio of initiatives that may check options for his finish aim: a metaverse undertaking at present codenamed Artemis. Nonetheless, whereas the likes of Roblox and Fortnite are investing closely in rising their very own metaverses, Greene tells me he’ll be doing issues very otherwise.
I received the probability to interview Greene about all issues Prologue, starting from his response to important Steam evaluations at launch, to a few of the options he needs to see added to the sport all through early entry.
However an interaction between Greene and Epic Video games CEO Tim Sweeney on X – by which the pair confirmed a mutual love for the battle royale franchise – motivated me to ask about Artemis, too. Fortnite is after all a behemoth now, however its beginnings as a battle royale sport have been impressed by PUBG. I ask Greene if issues have, in a way, come full circle, the place PlayerUnknown Productions is now impressed by Fortnite and its evolution right into a metaverse platform.
“No,” Greene says with a chuckle, the bluntness of his reply taking me aback barely. “Effectively, sure and no. So I feel Tim and everybody else metaverse-y are all chasing that Prepared Participant One dream, proper? That concept of this multiverse of digital worlds the place you may go and discover. I simply suppose everybody’s doing it the wrong way. I feel everyone seems to be constructing server consumer fashions for these worlds, and you will by no means get past perhaps 10,000 individuals [in a single experience]. I am attempting to create a way to do the web in 3D. [There are places on the internet right now] the place you’ve thousands and thousands, if not billions, of individuals coming collectively to share concepts, create content material, and have conversations in 2D and there is nowhere actually like that in 3D.”
“Tim says he would not suppose the metaverse is feasible, as a result of we do not have server farms large enough but,” Greene provides, though I used to be unable to search out proof of Sweeney making such feedback, explicitly. What PlayerUnknown Productions is attempting to construct, although, is know-how that may create the infrastructure for a metaverse regionally on gamers’ units.
“With Prologue, you’ve a machine studying agent that generates a peak map, a easy black and white picture, that we then feed into Unreal Engine and it builds the remainder of the world primarily based on that. With Preface [PUP’s un-gamified tech demo that builds much larger environments than Prologue], we’re utilizing ML fashions to construct an Earth-scale world regionally in your GPU and all offline with out counting on server farms to create the content material. And I feel that is the massive distinction […] I wish to construct it from the backside up, and I feel the others try to construct it from the prime down. I simply do not see that as the proper way.”
One among Greene’s non-negotiables with Artemis is that it’ll even be open supply. He says that PUP is not attempting to construct “an engine to compete with Unreal or Unity,” however moderately an “open framework” that may help experiences constructed throughout all method of engines. On the subject of the current deal struck by Epic to let Unity-built video games run and be featured in Fortnite Artistic, Greene once more distances himself from Sweeney and co’s method.
“Now you can launch Unity video games in Fortnite, however it’s a partnership,” he says. “It isn’t simply an open platform the place I can simply plug [my creation] in and it works. And that, I feel, is the massive distinction – I do not suppose the metaverse is enterprise to enterprise offers. I feel the metaverse needs to be an open framework the place everybody can plug in, and it’s simply agnostic to everybody.”
After I spoke to Greene at the starting of the 12 months, he mentioned that Undertaking Artemis can be roughly a decade away. In the shorter time period, Prologue might be in early entry for round a 12 months, increasing its survival sandbox and perfecting its map technology tech. Help for Prologue will run one other couple of years after hitting 1.0, in accordance with Greene, whereas PUP will get its engine “prepared for sport two.” So, the likes of Epic could have a beneficiant headstart in the metaverse race, however perhaps there is a world the place PUP’s extra open, regionally generated tortoise surpasses hares like Fortnite and Roblox.