One of, if not the most enjoyable, aspects of online multiplayer is free-for-all deathmatches. Everyone pitted against each other in a chaotic massacre can be exhilarating if you're in the heat of battle. Many games have portrayed it in different ways, and one such game is H1Z1 from 2015. However, a more recent imagining of this style of play has been released for Steam members, though, as well as console players in the not-too-distant future. The mouthful that is PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDShas proven to be a bit of a smash hit with gamers and it appears that it is completely outclassing H1Z1 that came before it. At least that is what I believe.
H1Z1 released at the beginning of 2015 as a Steam early access title, and was a zombie apocalypse survival game. The focus was on co-operation as you and the rest of your group worked together to fend off incoming zombies and potentially hostile survivors. Sounds pretty unoriginal, right?
Well, further down the line the game got split into two, with the original being repackaged as H1Z1: Just Survive and the other half being dubbed H1Z1: King of the Hill. The latter title had a different approach to gameplay in larger scale environments with a couple of different modes on offer. One of these modes was the infamous Battle Royale. Whether in 2-player, 5-player, or even in solo, players will parachute into an area and the aim was to kill absolutely everyone. It's not as though this concept was completely revolutionary at the time, but it felt like much of a refreshing sidestep from what is now seen as very uninspired in zombie settings.
- Brendan Greene a.k.a. 'PlayerUnknown', one of the pioneer designers of the battle royale genre and creator of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, seems to be done with it.In an interview with.
- PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS is a last-man-standing shooter being developed with community feedback. Players must fight to locate weapons and supplies in a massive 8x8 km island to be the lone survivor. This is Battle Royale.
- Brendan Greene a.k.a. 'PlayerUnknown', one of the pioneer designers of the battle royale genre and creator of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, seems to be done with it.In an interview with.
The mastermind behind the 'Battle Royale' genre as a whole, Brendan Greene, the Creative Director of Bluehole inc., was the very person who brought both of these experiences into existence. Starting out with the ARMA series, Greene incorporated the new mode and then went on to licence it for inclusion in H1Z1 as we see it today. Of course, this meant that it was somewhat of an experiment, as Greene himself was constantly improving on his original vision. That vision eventually became BATTLEGROUNDS, with Greene at the helm, otherwise known as PLAYERUNKNOWN.
Back to H1Z1, The Battle Royale mode is just one part of the entire King of the Hill package. Modes such as Skirmish are also on offer, so the primary focus of this title isn't only on Battle Royale. H1Z1 can be described as 'sloppy fun' if someone asks about it. It has a charm to it, but it isn't necessarily a smooth ride.
Why is this? There are a few reasons. The game's graphics are inferior in every sense when compared to BATTLEGROUNDS. Many gamers deem this as an unimportant factor in a game's success, but all it takes is a quick look at H1Z1 and BATTLEGROUNDS and the difference is obvious.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, known as PUBG is the Battle Royale Online Multiplayer video game with an emphasis on shooting elements, published by PUGB Corporation. It has exciting gameplay based on the previous mods that were established by Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene for other video games using the famous Battle Royale movie for.
Driving physics were occasionally criticized in H1Z1 as well, as fences could prove to be lethal as a quad bike made a sudden turn to dodge them, inevitably causing the player to be flipped over. The multiple vehicles on offer in BATTLEGROUNDS definitely feel far more responsive and there isn't (as much) worry of the game screwing you over and getting yourself killed without another player's aid. Bouncy police cars that are ever present in H1Z1 don't litter the field in the latter game.
Inventory management must be easy to master in games of this type, and while both offer reasonably simple menus, BATTLEGROUNDS, once again, takes the cake. H1Z1 has a tighter-fitting inventory screen that isn't quite as inspired, barely going below the surface when it comes to equipping your character. BATTLEGROUNDS spreads things out a little more, offering more room to play with. Your character will also be on show so you can see all your gear in action. Weapons mods can easily be placed in a weapon slot and the overall look of the menu is much slicker.
Another staple of the survival game is a UI that isn't too overbearing. Of course, every game in existence needs a functioning one but a Battle Royale title needs it to provide enough information so players always know what's going on as well as not having it flood the screen, therefore impairing their vision. H1Z1 and BATTLEGROUNDS are very similar in this regard but there is one detail that gives BATTLEGROUNDS an edge -- a minimap. The map of H1Z1 appears to be accessible only by clicking out of the action and scoping the area for a few seconds, but in BATTLEGROUNDS, a handy map in the corner will follow your movement so you have a little extra help in traversing the environment.
The over-the-shoulder third person camera is also sits just a little closer to the character in a BATTLEGROUNDS, allowing the player to feel even closer to the action. This also helps the character to feel more realistic in their own movement as the camera needs to be snappy and responsive to keep up with them. The camera can be the life and death of particular games, and in Battle Royale, it's another factor that needs to be perfect. BATTLEGROUNDS manages it in both player movement and weapon aiming.
Greene himself is also acknowledging a lot of player feedback with this one. ARMA and H1Z1 were his experiments as he began to understand the genre more, but BATTLEGROUNDS is his pride and joy, and all it takes is a simple visit to the game's website to realize this. Under the overview of the game, we see 'Community-Driven Development' emblazoned on the screen, followed by the following:
'Since we started this project a year ago, we have reached out to the Battle Royale community to gather suggestions and feedback about what they want and expect from the game.
Ever since we started our pre-alpha testing, we have worked with them to implement suggestions, get feedback about gameplay, and ask their help when we ran alpha and beta testing.'
Developers that are so in sync with their fanbase deserve a lot of recognition and respect. With BATTLEGROUNDS relying heavily on the very people who play it to make it better, that alone is causing it to outshine every Battle Royale-type game/mode that came before it.
We know that the Battle Royale mode of H1Z1 was made thanks to Greene's work, but the undeniable fact that BATTLEGROUNDS is the amalgamation of all his ideas and experiences gained through previous projects means that it's practically a no-brainer that it's the better portrayal of all-out player war.
In its first three days in Early Access, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds made over $11m. That's a staggering figure for what technically amounts to an unfinished game. Such is the power of 'Battle Royale' - an emerging breed of massively multiplayer action gaming based on the Japanese book and film of the same name, in which scores of players fight for the title of last person standing on a single map. It's an enormously popular subgenre, and it's almost entirely the work of one man - a modder whose online moniker is now synonymous with the game mode.
Brendan Greene, aka PlayerUnknown, is a 41-year-old father of one. He spends his time flitting between his home in Ireland, where his daughter lives, and his office in South Korea - home of Bluehole, the development studio doing the heavy lifting on Battlegrounds.
I caught up with Greene at this year's EGX Rezzed, and broke the ice by asking him if he plays his own game in his spare time. 'I don't get the chance to play it all that often', he says, shaking his head. 'I play a lot of Battlefield 1. I just love getting a sniper rifle in that and just playing in that class. It's quick and it's easy. Battlegrounds leaves you sweating at the end of it. It's very tough - support groups are needed!'
Battlegrounds sees up to 100 players duking it out on an island, parachuting from a plane and scrounging for weapons, vehicles and gear from the environment itself. You can stick to the coast to minimise the odds of being surrounded, but as time goes on, the size of the play area shrinks, forcing players together in a chaotic final encounter.
It's the fourth Battle Royale game Greene has worked on. I ask him to recount his rise from humble modder to battle royalty, a journey which spans just four short years.
'Yeah, so I started on Arma 2,' he began. 'I made a mod of a mod, DayZ: Battle Royale. That's where I started and then when DayZ Standalone came out I moved on to Arma 3 because interest died down, because everyone was playing the standalone. Then in Arma 3 I kind of tuned the game mode.'
It was his work on these mods that led to him becoming a consultant on Sony Online Entertainment's H1Z1 for its Battle Royale mode, called King of the Kill. 'Sony, they licensed my idea basically, which the lawyers found very interesting as a concept. It's like, 'You want to what?!.' But they simplified the idea and made it into what they did.'
While all these games may seem similar on the surface, Greene insists that they can coexist. 'When I started this I wasn't intending on copying Arma 3 and I wasn't intending on copying H1Z1,' he says. 'People say to me 'Oh you're a H1 killer', and it's like, no we're not, you know it's like we're different game modes. Ours is a little slower, a little bit more tactical, we emphasise decision-making. H1's a little bit more arcadey on all the kills, and Arma 3 is much more simulation. It's a slower, very tactical, very simulated game and we want to kind of go in the centre.
'I always compare it as like League and DOTA, they're two amazing games in the same genre and I think it's just fans wanting to say 'Oh you killed H1', and it's like, 'No! It's my game mode in H1!.' Even some of the H1 fanboys that don't know that it's my game mode on H1, they're saying, 'Oh I'm going to play H1,' and I kinda go, 'Thanks. Great. If you enjoy it, fantastic!' '
All this talk of killing H1Z1 makes me wonder if the release of Battlegrounds has created any friction between Greene and his old colleagues at Daybreak Studios, the current developers of H1Z1. 'Oh no, not at all!', says Greene. 'I mean, I was talking to Russell Shanks the ex-president of Daybreak and he was wishing me all the best when he heard, like he said, 'Oh I'm so happy that you got a chance to finally make your own game.' '
'They've done great things with King of the Kill, it's wonderful to see what they've done and it's helped cement the genre of Battle Royale.'
Playerunknown's Battlegrounds
Compared to the release of similar Early Access games, in particular H1Z1, Battlegrounds already feels incredibly polished. There are frame-rate hiccups here and there, especially at the start of each match, and occasionally a bit of rubber banding on the servers, but crucially, the majority of features work as they should. What's surprising, not only to me but to Greene himself, is that the game has been in production for no more than a year.
'I went to Korea this time last year and even the producer said, 'We're going to do it in a year.' ' Greene flashes a playful grin and continues: 'I was like hmm, at the start. I was like, 'Really?! A year?!' But you know, the team is phenomenal. They put in super long hours, like 14-hour days and are really committed to making it good. It's kind of Bluehole's philosophy to make well-made games and it shows. And you know, people are saying to us, 'Six months in Early Access? Yeah right!' and I can tell you, in six months time we will have a pretty much finished game.'
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Good recon.
Twit tloot.
Good shout.
It's a confident boast but considering the progress already made, it's a believable one. What happens at the end of those six months though? Will the team draw a line under Battlegrounds and move onto a new project, or will it continue to support the game?
'Oh no, we want to add new content, we want to add new maps, we want to add other settings, stuff like that, maybe a few game modes,' Greene says. 'But really we want to focus on adding a good deal of content so that when we open up modding for everyone they have content to do whatever they want with. You know, a good source of weapons, vehicles, buildings, that kind of stuff.'
How about short-term goals? What's first up on the list of things the team want to improve on now there's a week's worth of Early Access feedback to draw upon? 'We have to balance weapons and stuff,' Greene says. 'We'll add air drag over the next few months. It's going to take us time to do because of zeroing and stuff but we want to really balance gunplay to make it feel solid. Balance the classes, add some more weapons.
'For me it's just more polish now, go through the map, grid by grid and make it look fantastic. Little details like the terrain. Like, grass has a tactical advantage if you turn the foliage to very low. We want to get rid of grass from a gameplay perspective. We want to make it more like Battlefield 1 grass that doesn't really have an effect on gameplay.'
I ask him the inevitable question about a console release, and while Greene seems confident it will eventually happen, he won't commit to a date. 'We have a team that is looking at porting it and we use Unreal which is built for multi platform so we have to just get it performing well on console. We're looking to release on console sometime after the PC version is finished but you know it's there and it's on our roadmap as a thing to do, but for us at the moment - performance for PC - get that running smooth first.'
So what's in store for PlayerUnknown after Battlegrounds has run its course? Will Greene continue to be the figurehead for the Battle Royale genre or is it time to try something different? 'No, no I want to do something different,' he says. 'I'm still not finished with the game, there's going to be years yet for Battle Royale and Battlegrounds because we have plans for eSports and all that kind of stuff, but I want to do another game.
'I have two more ideas of games that I want to make, one kind of a riff on Command and Conquer, but more interesting. I have a pretty good idea... well I think it's good! The other one I want to do is a proper survival game. I want to do 100km by 100km maps that probably are procedurally generated with 2000 people. You know it's a big dream, but it's in there and let's see. The technology is getting there, there's some interesting stuff like distributed computing for games that makes it more feasible but for the moment I want to finish Battlegrounds, and then I can go, 'This is the end of Battle Royale for me.' '
To polish our conversation off, I ask Greene to share his best tip with me (while I really enjoy Battlegrounds, I'm terrible at it). He laughs. 'You see people like, 'Oh I got 40 kills in a round. I came third though,' and it's like, but you didn't win so, I don't care! Win!
'And by winning it's being smart and not taking on fights until you know you can win them, that's the key here. Go get good loot and then find a bush and then love that bush, and just wait for people to make mistakes.'