"PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" is one of the most popular games on Twitch and one of the most played games on Steam.  The developer of the game has discussed his creation with two gaming websites.

Brendan Greene, who goes by the handle "Playerunknown," is the creator of "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds."  He talked about his game with Gamasutra and GamesIndustry.

Like Us on Facebook

"PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds" is a multiplayer online survival game.  It is a third-person shooter game where up to a hundred players fight it out in a battle royale. The gameplay is like a large-scale deathmatch where players fight to the death to be the last man standing.

The game is the distillation of Greene's previous work in the "Arma" series.  The challenge for him was to build an open world that was suitable for the battle royale type of gameplay.

He created his "Battle Royale" mod for the "DayZ" add-on to "Arma II."  He later fine-tuned the mod for "Arma III."

His battle royale gameplay was later incorporated into "H1Z1."  Sony Online Entertainment noticed his mod and brought him in as a consultant for the zombie survival game.  He created the "King of the Kill" mode for that game.

Greene went on to create his own game, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds," with the help of the South Korean developer, BlueHole.  He is now Creative Director at the company.

His game represents his final vision for what "Battle Royale" should be.  It is the final refinement of all his ideas that he had for all the games he had previously worked on for three years, as well as other games he knows.

He designed the map of the game world to have variety with different buildings and environmental characteristics.  The map is designed so that players will remain engaged in the game and will not feel frustrated or bored no matter which directions they head for.

His game changing design feature, which Greene calls the deus ex machina of the game, is a blue wall that surrounds the game world and shrinks, reducing the play area as the match goes on.  This forces players to be closer together, requiring them to move constantly or risk getting killed if they relax for even a moment. 

"PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" offers full modding tools which allow players to create variations on the game or even create a completely new game.  This was included because he wanted to find the next "PlayerUnknown" who could create something new for the game which will lead to an opportunity to create their games in the future.

It was important for him that the game includes full modding tools because he started out as a modder.  Greene said that he doesn't consider himself a true gamer since most of his career he has been a designer.

He considers himself lucky considering the opportunities he has had in making popular mods for games that led to creating his own game which became successful.  This was the reason why Greene wanted full modding tools to be included in "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" because he wants others to have the same opportunities he had to succeed.