Planet-sized Open World; Artemis Aims to Realistically Simulate Wildlife
Brendan Greene, better known as PlayerUnknown, has shared details about his latest venture, Project Artemis, an open world game encompassing an etire planet.
Brendan Greene, better known by his handle PlayerUnknown, is an Irish-based game developer who made a name for himself as the leader of the team responsible for the wildly popular shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. After stepping away from work on the hit battle royale game, Greene devoted himself to other projects. One of them was the mysterious Prologue, which we mentioned a few years ago.
Now on the pages of PC Gamer Greene shared more information about the work on this ambitious project.
An open world full of possibilities
Christopher Livingston from PC Gamer had the opportunity to experience an early version of Project Artemis - a procedurally generated space the size of an entire planet. In the future, the open world is to support fully functioning vegetation, wildlife or weather systems. Players will interact with it and use available resources. As Greene points out, however:
"I don't want to classify it as a game. I'm sure there will be gameplay elements. And we do have plans for a light survival exploration-type, life civilization game mode type thing—what else would you do with a massive world?," said Greene
Some of the survival and exploration mechanics are to be made available in Prologue. As the author explains, the project, announced several years ago, will be a kind of technology demo, heralding the release of the studio's main project, Artemis.
Continuing on the theme of the broad possibilities that PlayerUnknown Productions' ambitious project will provide, Brendan Greene mentions:
"If you just want to wander around the world, you can do that. If you want to go sit by a lake and read a book, you can do that, too. It's [Project Artemis - ed. note] not meant to be targeted at one genre or one thing you do, there's going to be multiple ways to enjoy the world or have an experience in the world. It's more important to me to create the space than targeting one thing."
Looking for comparisons, PlayerUnknown cites such games as Second Life or Rust, in which players themselves decide on the activities they will undertake, and the forms of spending time with the title can vary considerably from one recipient to another.
PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions.
Story layer
Surprisingly, the open experience of Artemis is not meant to be completely devoid of narrative. The author briefly introduces the suggested outline of the story:
"The story of Artemis is that it's a digital place where humanity has to go to learn how to take back the earth."
The plot will take the player 500 years into the future - three centuries after humanity left its home planet under mysterious circumstances. Greene plans to bring the story more closely together in a planned series of comic books. Their publication date, however, remains unknown.
Blockchain system integration
Asked about similarities to "metaverse" type projects, associated with ventures by corporations such as Meta and Epic, PlayerUnknown clearly replies that he has no intention of selling virtual space personally.:
"I won't be selling land like most digital spaces. If we're allowing people to claim land, you'll have to go there. You'll have to stake your claim, and maybe do some work and gather some resources to claim this piece for you," Greene says
However, the developer does not rule out the possibility of reselling the conquered land to other players.. For this reason, Greene is considering implementing blockchain-based systems in the game. According to the developer, mechanics of this type could provide a "financial layer", regulating the decentralized world to some extent.
PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions.
Aware of the negative attitude the gaming community has towards blockchain-based mechanics in games, Greene explains:
"There are a bunch of scams [in the industry - ed. note]. Don't get me wrong, I also see the terribleness of it all. But I think for certain purposes, it can work quite well."
Lots of unknowns
Although project Artemis promises to be really impressive, one can't help getting the impression that it is still in the very early stages of development, while many of its features are undergoing dynamic changes. The author himself makes no secret of the fact that many aspects of Artemis, such as the issue of network infrastructure and moderation, remain a mystery to him:
"If we're building something like this, do I moderate it? Can I moderate it? I don't know yet. I think I have to. I think it's a moral obligation to make sure we can stamp out Nazis. But I'm not sure yet. I think I need to employ some people smarter than me to think about this."
PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions.
Despite the many unknowns and early stage of development, project Artemis remains a very interesting and ambitious undertaking by a man who has already managed to build a reputation in the game industry. As soon as new information related to project Artemis is available, we will certainly inform you.
