PUBG creator says his massive new open-world game is like “building a Holodeck” where players can “create whatever experience they want”

After he changed the multiplayer landscape with 2017’s hit battle royale game Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, creator Brenden Greene has been focused on his next project: a massive earth-scale open-world game.

Currently titled Project Artemis, Greene sets his sights on just how big of a space he can create. Talking to PC Gamer, Greene questions,”How big can we go?” As it turns out, pretty big. “It eventually turned into Earth-scale,” he continues, “because it was a nice challenge.”

A tall task for any development team, but Greene made it even more difficult by deciding that creating this world was his job, and his alone. “What we’re doing is super risky, right? And eventually I decided it’s better just to do it myself. It was a lot harder than I thought.” Naturally Greene has a team working on the survival elements and other gameplay features, but the task of designing the massive world is all his own. 

If that sounds simple enough, keep in mind that it’s not just about making a large open space, but one that can foster emergent gameplay ideas and facilitate whatever the team wants to fill it with. Greene adds, “it’s building a holodeck, building a space that you can create whatever experiences you want.” 

It will be interesting to see how big the final version of Project Artemis ends up. Greene acknowledges that this isn’t going to be a quick turnaround and won’t be without its faults. “This is going to be a bumpy road,” he admits. “But if you come along with us for the journey, we’ll have highs, we’ll have lows, but it’ll be a great journey and we’ll have something very special at the end.”

If you want to learn even more, check out how Project Artemis is and isn’t a survival MMO.