Laaads! Playerunknown's Battlegrounds new studio making "original narrative experience"
LADS LADS LADS
Glen Schofield, the director of Call Of Duty: WWII and executive producer of Dead Space, has joined PUBG Corp to lead an "original narrative experience" set in the world of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. The developers today announced Schofield as CEO of their new studio, Striking Distance. I am, as a leading authority on the narrative of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, fascinated to see what the new team bring to this game about stag & hen weekends turned deadly. Will Striking Distance go with a take inspired by comedy movies like The Hangover, slightly more fantastical comedy movies such as The Hangover Part II, or gritty comedy movies like The Hangover Part III? I can hardly wait.
The story of Plunkbat, we all know, is about groups of folks on stag and hen weekends who get black-out drunk, wake up in the back of an aeroplane wearing a parachute, then sorta just go along with it. They've come for a weekend of paintballing, banter, antics, and hanging around the hotel belting out Chelsea Dagger, and that's what they're going to get. If 99 people are hospitalised along the way then well, that only makes the weekend more epic.
They sing! They shout "Oi oiiiii!" over microphone while trying to run people over! They chug weird energy drinks! They pull pranks! They climb over walls and onto buildings! They shoot people in the face then rob their unconscious bodies! They're dressed weirdly because they had thirty seconds to get ready before the taxi left to start the pub crawl! They have boat accidents! They have jetski accidents! They have moped accidents! They generally have weekends remembered primarily through portrait-mode phone videos.
That, surely, is the story Schofield and Striking Distance will try to capture. Certainly no pish about Soviet research projects and rebellions and edgy d00dz wearing hooded leather coats covered in buckles.
"As a creative, the freedom to explore the PUBG universe has me excited about the possibilities, which I view as beyond the battle royale genre," Schofield teased in today's announcement.
"Throughout my career, I've had a lot of opportunities to make some remarkable games that tell incredible stories, and each of them has meant something special to me," he said. "But now, those learnings will help me build a AAA team that can explore new designs and concepts at Striking Distance."
Ooh how mysterious! And that's about all they have to say about this new... game? It's surely a standalone game.
Striking Distance are based in San Ramon, California, and currently hiring. Plunkboss Brendan "Playerunknown" Greene dropped off the Plunkteam earlier this year to lead a new R&D team working on mysterious things. So many mysteries. So much banter.
