PUBG Origin: How A 37-Year-Old Graphic Designer Built The Most Popular Mobile Game In India

Have you ever wondered why PUBG has such a weird name? PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is such a mouthful, why would they name it that?

That's because it's not the name of a game studio or a made-up title, it's someone's gamer tag.

Why would you even be wondering about where the name PUBG comes from? Well why wouldn't you? It's only the biggest mobile game in India right now. And that's just within a few months; before that it first became a massively successful PC and console game, and one of the pioneers in the battle royale genre. But the story behind its origins is nothing so simple.

How it all began

PlayerUnkown is actually the person responsible for the creation of PUBG. Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene is a modder-turned-developer, but he's not some kind of genius that built a hit game by himself. He did have help from Korean game studio Bluehole entertainment, but there's an intriguing story behind it all.

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To understand, you need to go back to 2013, when open world military simulator 'Arma 2' had a really poopular mod called 'DayZ'. This mixed zombie survival with the existing gameplay of Arma 2, the realism of which then 37-year-old Greene loved. So he began working on a mod of his own for DayZ, based on a hit Japanese book turned movie called 'Battle Royale'. In it, instead of zombies you had to survive against other people trying to get you. If that sounds like Hunger Games, you're absolutely right.

Greene had to actually learn coding along the way to build his mod, which received a large amount of attention thanks to how popular DayZ was at the time. And so, the very first version of what eventually became PUBG was built, creating a new Battle Royal game genre in the process.

Always moving forward

Eventually, DayZ was released as a standalone game by it's developer, which prompted Greene to instead begin tinkering with modding Arma 3, polishing the idea to a shine. In fact, it's at this point that he designed a lot of the tactical aspects.

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However, thanks to his work with DayZ modding, the battle royale genre actually began gaining mainstream popularity. Eventually, Sony's entertainment division brought Greene on as a consultant to design a battle royale mode for their game H1Z1. By the time development finished, Greene's mode had been promoted to a separate standalone game, 'H1Z1: King of the Kill'.

Just as that development window ended in 2015, and Greene found himself free once more, South Korean studio Bluehole Ginno games contacted him about a job. The battle royale genre hadn't picked up in the country just yet; they wanted to be the first to cash in on it, and they wanted him to build it.

Greene signed on as creative director for the new game, and development began in early 2016. It was the moment of conception for PUBG, which went on to release in 2017.

Many, many children

The thing that's most striking here is something you may have missed if you don't know those other game titles. PUBG is the biggest battle royale game right now and Fortnite (a similar more arcadey title that mashed the genre with build wars) is pretty close. But when battle royale games first soared to popularity in the mainstream, the biggest names were DayZ and H1Z1.

PlayerUnkown didn't just create PUBG, he's the father of three of the biggest names in the genre.

And just like a doting parent, according to a 2017 chat with Eurogamer, Greene doesn't have a favourite child. "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," he said. "Ours is a little slower, a little bit more tactical, we emphasize decision-making. H1's a little bit more arcade-y on all the kills, and Arma 3 is much more simulation."

He laughs when fans of H1Z1 accuse him of killing their favourite game. "No! It's my game mode in H1!" he laughed.