Yep, that word is being used by a big name developer again. But then that big name developer is Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, the guy whose game PUBG created an entirely new multiplayer sub-genre, so it’s possible that his aspirations shared in an IGN interview aren’t quite like the peyote-powered ramblings of a studio seeking quick money.
Greene’s ultimate metaverse goal is codenamed Artemis, a program that he describes like a sort of 3-D internet accessible by multiple devices that’s capable of housing millions of users and where people can create what they want; users will still have a basic game experience, but they will also be empowered to create “3-D webpages.”
Getting to Artemis is being done through the development of two preface games: Game one, Prologue, is a basic survival sandbox game that’s being used to test a terrain generation tool known as Melba. The unnamed game two will then take that terrain tech and try to provide a play space that spans “500 million square kilometers, earth scale” and allows for millions of players at once. As of right now, Prologue is in closed testing within a Discord community, but is planning for a wider release in 2025, while Greene presumes the entire project will take as long as 10 to 15 years to come to its final form as Artemis.
Having a metaverse that Greene wants to be controlled by its users naturally brings up the question of moderation. Greene suggests a couple of solutions such as communal agreement to lock out bad actors from sites or turning misbehaving users into “ghosts” that can still travel Artemis but otherwise can’t interact. Greene does admit that there are still many unanswered problems to account for, such as criminal activity, copyright violation, or users being exploited, but he is relying on following guidance from “people smarter than [him]” and working with the community to address these matters.
Greene also has said outright that Artemis won’t support NFTs, but he also leaves open the possibility of applying blockchain tech assuming its application as a digital ledger has some benefit to the metaverse. “[W]e’ll find the best one and use it. But that’s really it,” he says.
In the end, Artemis is being powered by Greene’s expressed interest in shaking up the way the gaming industry makes things. “Games are driven a lot by data points on Excel spreadsheets rather than making fun games and it’s a little depressing,” he argues. “So that’s why I want to stick to my vision because I think we need a platform like this. We need a platform where people can just create and not worry that you’ve got an exec team shooting it.”
