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PlayerUnknown Productions, a game studio headed by battle royale pioneer Brendan Greene, announced it has hired David Polfeldt to act as a senior adviser.
Polfeldt left Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment studio in Sweden in March 2021. He spent 17 years at Massive, which was responsible for creating the Snowdrop game engine and shipping big titles such as The Division and The Division 2. It is also working on the upcoming Avatar and Star Wars titles.
“After chatting with David at a conference last month, we concluded that David would be a great fit to come and advise me on creating a successful studio culture with a great working environment,” said Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, in a statement.
Polfeldt said in a statement, “I’m delighted to join the team at PlayerUnknown Productions, where I will help guide Brendan’s hand in creating an authentic studio and a successful brand.”
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Greene spun PlayerUnknown Productions out of Krafton as an independent applied research and development studio. The aim was to explore how new technologies can enable large-scale digital experiences, including a huge single-player game world that Greene has dubbed Prologue and a subsequent massive multiplayer world dubbed Project Artemis.
Based in Amsterdam and led by Greene, the team of game developers, software engineers and researchers are experimenting with tools like machine learning and data-driven design to build a new engine that will attempt to push the envelope of what is possible with virtual worlds. I asked Greene if there were any plans to bring Polfeldt on full-time yet, and he said there aren’t such plans yet.
Greene is often referred to as the father of the battle royale genre, as he originally designed the game mode as a mod for the Arma series of games. After first bringing his game mode to the broader public in H1Z1, he went on to create the multi-award-winning game carrying his name, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), which has sold tens of millions of copies and spawned new versions for mobile and free-to-play.
Polfeldt has been a part of the video game industry for 25 years. He created everything from small enthusiast-games to massive triple-A titles. He started his career in a basement with friends, learning the ropes through the challenges of start-ups, before his passion for video games carried him to a leading role within Ubisoft and Hollywood. As the managing director for Massive Entertainment, a job he held for 17 years, he was in charge of the triple-A teams for The Division, Avatar, and Star Wars. He was also in charge of the a game engine Snowdrop, global intellectual property partnerships, and complex projects with huge budgets spread over multi-site development.
Since July 2022, Polfeldt has been freelancing as a management consultant under the umbrella of his own company, Flaming Cat.
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Author: Dean Takahashi
Source: Venturebeat
