PUBG’s very own Brenden Greene – more commonly known as PlayerUnknown – aspires for his new simulation project, developed at his new studio, to genuinely be a “realistic Minecraft” featuring geology that mirrors our actual world.
In a discussion with GamesRadar+ regarding his Earth-scale simulation project Venture Artemis and his forthcoming survival project Venture: Lope Wayback – which utilizes the same remarkable procedural generation technology – Greene elaborated on his vision of a world that is true to our Earth.
“I want to focus on geology,” he states. “I want you to look at an area and think, ‘there ought to be iron here’ or ‘this resource should be found here,’ and possibly establish a mine to engage in this type of Civilization, Age of Empires [concept] in 3D, as an additional layer. If you wish to interact with that layer, you are free to do so.”
While Venture Artemis may still be a decade away, the team’s ambition is to be capable of “creating a world terrain” where everything connects in a manner that makes ecological sense, allowing players to “then ascertain what lies beneath using satellite maps.” This last element is particularly significant, as Greene and his team are also constructing caves as part of their objective to achieve “a realistic Minecraft.”
“Yet again, this is the reason we have a ten-year [plan], because executing this all in real-time? We have been questioned numerous times, ‘why are you implementing this in real-time?’ but, as you can observe, it provides us with some fascinating capabilities to create worlds,” he explains.
This emphasis on realism is extending into Venture: Lope Wayback, a brutally realistic survival simulator that strips the genre of any gamified assistance. You might have to protect yourself from the cold, yet you cannot create a campfire from a menu. You may need to make your way to a distant weather station, but your map will not display a helpful icon indicating your location within the landscape.
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