One of the most realistic and savage survival games I've ever played, PUBG creator's new project gets a launch date

One of my favorite games I've previewed this year is Prologue, the debut project from PlayerUnknown Productions. Yes, that 'PlayerUnknown', the creator of PUBG, Brendan Greene. He's got some big plans. Mixing some impressive terrain generation tech with the core mechanics of some of the best survival games, Prologue is far more challenging than its simple premise suggests - spawn into a random world, brave the elements, and reach a weather tower in the distance. After several months of playtests, PlayerUnknown Productions now feels ready to push Prologue out into the wild. An early access launch is coming in November, and the game's getting plenty of new features to mark the occasion.

As a survival experience, Prologue avoids overcomplication while still offering a genuinely tough experience. You'll have to ensure your hunger, thirst, and body temperature don't drop to dangerous levels as you explore the vast, procedurally generated forest outside of the cozy cabin you spawn in. Other cabins are dotted around, offering protection from the elements and opportunities to find better clothes, food, and facilities for cooking meals, and their rough locations are found scribbled onto a physical map you can use for reference alongside your compass. Outside of that, though, there's little in the way of hand-holding to get you to the final destination of the weather tower. If you're lucky with the way the world generates around you, you may be able to visually aim for it. If not, your expedition might be even tougher than expected.

We've seen vast, procedurally generated spaces in games before - No Man's Sky springs to mind - but in terms of creating realistic, believable terrain that can evolve with whatever Mother Nature throws at it, Prologue stands apart. If it rains heavily, muddy areas can quickly turn to quagmires that slow you down. Rocks can become slippery in cold and wet conditions. As night rolls in, visibility plummets, but flashes of lightning during a thunderstorm could help guide the way.

PlayerUnknown Productions has been busy in recent months refining its terrain generation tech and weather systems, but it's also thrown in a few new items like binoculars and matchbooks for starting fires. However, when the early access Prologue release date arrives next month, it'll get its biggest shake-up yet.

Alongside the core, 'Go Wayback!' survival experience, new game modes and custom settings will arrive so that you can tailor Prologue to your liking. A free roam mode lets you simply explore a generated world to help you become familiar with navigation (and lets you take some stunning screenshots without the added pressure of, you know, not dying). On the other end of the spectrum, the 'Objective: Survive' mode removes the goal of reaching the tower and instead tasks you with surviving as long as possible. Custom settings will give you the freedom to find the perfect difficulty sweet spot. You can set the desired weather conditions you want, increase cabin spawns, stop the passing of time, and much more.

On top of all this is a new map editor feature. While I personally think the random terrains are what make Prologue special, this will let you tinker with maps and import images and designs that the game will incorporate into its map generation. The new early access trailer shows someone pasting a maze layout into one of Prologue's maps, for example.

Prologue launches in early access on Thursday, November 20. You'll be able to grab it on both Steam and the Epic Games Store.

For more great experiences you can get lost in for hours on end, head to our best single-player games guide. While the entries in our best open-world games list will be considerably more hand-crafted than Prologue, there's plenty of options for intrepid explorers.

What survival games are you playing right now, and will you be giving Prologue a spin? Let us know in the PCGamesN Discord server, and if you do give the game a try, feel free to share some beautiful screenshots.