PlayerUnknown, the creator behind, you guessed it, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, has come out to say that he's stepping down from active involvement in the game, although he will be remaining at PUBG Corp, under a new division. 

PUBG Special Projects will focus on brand new games, rather than Battle Royales, but with multiplayer still a core component. Speaking to GamesIndustry, he said the new studio "will explore new possibilities of interaction and connection within the game space.", and that "The last man standing concept is great, but I've done that. I don't really intend to make PUBG 2".

I've done battle royale, it's time to try something else. There are ideas about how we connect to people and how we provide the different experiences I have.

His new division will have the creative freedom to explore new titles and gameplay styles, without any kind of financial or timescale limitations. Rather than being for profit, the studio is there to see what can be done, exploring new concepts, and to try and come up with something new.

While he may be moving on to pastures new, however, PUBG itself will continue development and Playerunknown does hope for the genre to continue to grow, especially as an e-sport. He also hopes to see more games make new ground in the genre rather than just replicate PUBG's success, something he mentioned was achieved with Apex Legends' runaway success.

Apex Legends did an amazing job, they didn't hype anything, they just announced and delivered a great game. It's hard to enter the space right now. I don't envy the developer teams with that task.

He has also admitted that he knows it's unlikely he will replicate the success of PUBG, but believes the only way to continue to grow and learn is to try new things.