Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ Greene has done one of those Ask-me-Anything things on Reddit, and he’s pretty forthcoming. We’ve condensed the highlights below – headline news concerns ranked play, esports, a Father Ted tribute and the fact that Greene would like to add a single-player campaign (but don’t expect it any time soon).
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More than one commenter asked about the recent decision to stop players binding two functions to a single key – a feature which had been (ab)used by some players for easier to jump-crouches. Greene feels this gave some players an unfair advantage over others who didn’t know about the feature, and while jump-crouching is still possible, it now requires mechanical skill to execute, which is the intention.
Dozens of questions were asked about refinements to existing features as well as the addition of new ones, and in the main, Greene’s responses can be paraphrased as either “nice idea, we’ll think about it” or “we’re working on this; nothing to announce yet, but stay tuned.” Common topics that drew the latter response included refinements to vehicle physics, audio levels, the blue zone, gunplay, and bullet penetration through surfaces such as water, chain-link fencing, and wood. Three new vehicles are also being worked on.
Questions were also raised about the devs’ treatment of streamers. Greene denies that streamers get special treatment: “there’s a lot of assumption and rumour flying around, and I would be careful as to what you take as truth. As an example, we have never banned anyone for honking near a streamer, despite what others online may say!”
Greene gives more substantial answers on esports and ranked play.Asked about a League of Legends of CS:GO-style division/placement system, he says “we do have plans to add systems like this. We also want to add a character-leveling system, weapon skill systems (that doesn’t affect gameplay), and other progression systems.” It sounds like this is a ways off, as he only promises more news “once we get a chance to fully plan them out!”
Greene acknowledges the logistical difficulties of getting 80+ PCs together for an esports event, but says “we have a great team here that are working with esport organisations, teams, and organisers to figure out the best way to move forward with a battle royal esport. Our first event at Gamescom taught us a lot.”
Greene says that, since he’d been working on the battle royale game mode since Arma 2, “there weren’t many” ideas that didn’t get implemented. That said, he says he “would love to add a single-player campaign to the game. I think the island we have could be a great location for an interesting story, but unfortunately we just don’t have the time or the resources at the moment!”
On the lighter side, Greene says he has plans to add “a little nod to [Father] Ted” – a brilliant Irish sitcom, if you tragically didn’t know – and that he has no regrets about the game’s unwieldy title since “it has led to one of the cooler acronyms – PUB GEEEEEE.”
You can browse the full AMA on Reddit here.