PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is at a stage where developer PUBG Corp. must keep its most loyal players happy while still bringing in new players. And now the studio has put Dave Curd in a position to take on that job as creative director. Curd, however, views his job as something simpler: make PUBG fun. I talked to him about that this week, and you can listen to the interview below as part of the How Games Make Money podcast:
Curd has worked at PUBG Corp. for three years, but the first thing he’s overseeing as creative director is the new Season 10 content drop. This update includes a new map called Haven that is small at 1 square kilometer. But it’s also dense with a lot of taller buildings with multiple floors. Season 10 is also adding AI-controlled combatants that search the map looking for players in trucks and helicopters. But if you can take out these squads, you and your team can pick up some rare items.
“We’re trying a lot of new things,” said Curd. “[Haven is] our tiniest map yet. It’s one by one, which would lead you to believe that it’s kind of a slaughterfest — kind of a team deathmatch map almost. But it’s quite the opposite because we use so much verticality. There’s multiple six-to-seven story buildings, a deep Labyrinthian steel mill to explore, and lots of coal hills to navigate, so even though it’s for only 32 players, we’re still seeing the average match length be about 15 minutes that’s partially because of the verticality.”
The idea, according to Curd, is to provide players with even more ways of creating their own stories.
“A big part of that is interesting choices,” said Curd. “The goal is to give the players new tools, new functions, new opportunities, and new choices so that when they’re recounting their latest chicken dinner, their story sounds 100% different than their buddies.”
Season 10 launches December 16 on PC and December 17 on consoles.
