PUBG’s New Creative Director Wants To Restore Focus On Larger Maps And Slower Survival Gameplay

Much needed!

Although, PUBG was created and developed under Brendan Greene, often known as PlayerUnknown. This won’t be the case in the future because Brendan has joined Krafton Special Projects Team, and Dave Curd will now step in and take the Creative Director Role. Dave previously worked as Art Director at Raven Software and Shiver Entertainment. He also worked as an art director at PUBG Global from 2018 to August 2020.

In a lengthy interview with gamesindustry.biz, Dave Curd shared his initial thoughts on the job, saying that his particular task is to work on user experience and entire gameplay. He went on to say dozens of core mechanics require enhancements, but his focus is to make PUBG a better game for new players and improve the entire experience.

PUBG originally started with just one map, and now it has six maps. The gameplay in the early days was quite different; only TPP mode was available, Circles were really slow, and the overall game was always very intense. You would casually drop at the corner of the map at Yasnaya Polyana, mostly loot alone, and then travel on foot, or use a vehicle, if you were lucky. Enemies were hard to find; the gameplay was scary, fun, and sometimes dramatic due to Fogg and Rainy weather.

PUBG
North of Yasnaya Polyana and Mansion

Over the years, the gameplay has become more fast-paced, with people now aiming to get more kills and small maps like Sanhok bringing a new energy level. The loot has also increased significantly, and vehicle spawns are all over the place.

Dave Curd says that PUBG isn’t a deathmatch or looter shooter game. It’s a survival game, and all its mechanics should be related to survival. He plans on transforming the game to larger maps, where gameplay is dramatically slow.

“It’s not a very big deathmatch,” he says. “It’s not a giant looter shooter. It’s survival, and survival means everything from gunplay to exploration to vehicles to tactics to interesting choices.”

“You’re exploring with your friends, you’re driving motorcycles, you’re getting into shenanigans, and boom — a gunfight out of nowhere,” Curd says. “And it’s scary, and it’s intense. Larger worlds are how you get that done — the 8×8 Erangel size, maybe even larger. That’s the kind of stuff we’re looking to in the future.”
 
Curd also further stated right now, the game lacks tons of survival and exploration mechanics. This is somewhat true because it’s literally impossible with the newer map, which is 1x1km. He also mentioned the bigger maps, Erangel and Miramar, would play an important role in their plans.
 
 
“If you look at the survival phase, it’s like, ‘Press F to open door. Press F to get into a vehicle.’ It’s relatively straightforward. Looking at the survival phase, it seems like there’s a lot of room for new, exciting choices and diverse stories. [The gameplay right now] is gunplay complex, survival phase shallow. But if you look at time spent in PUBG, you could invert it. Most of your time is surviving and wandering around. 90% of the time is probably just in the wilderness, with 10% being actual gunfights. To me, that says that there’s 90% of the match that we could enrich.”
 
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Moiz Banoori is the brains behind eXputer. Having worked at various Video Game sites, with 8 years of Content Writing Experience and a Journalism Degree at hand, he presently monitors teams, creates strategies, and publishes qualified pieces through his aptitude at eXputer. Feel free to get in touch with him through his gaming profile on Steam and PSN.

Experience: 8+ Years || Manages Teams, Creates Strategies, and Publishes Guides on eXputer || Education: Bachelors in Journalism.

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