PUBG creator's hardcore survival game Prologue drops an open beta out of nowhere

After creating a whole new genre with PUBG, Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene is turning his hand to a hardcore survival game. Prologue has been in the works for a while now, quietly being refined by PlayerUnknown Productions and its team of community playtesters. But now the time has come to open its doors a little wider - the Prologue open beta has been announced, and it drops, well, right now.

On premise alone, Prologue sounds like one of the most straightforward, simple games around. Spawn in a woodland cabin and try to make your way to a weather station placed somewhere on the map. That's the only objective. However, PlayerUnknown Productions doesn't make it easy for you.

Extreme weather, from torrential downpours, to blizzards, to thunderstorms, can roll in with very little warning. Unless you have the items to survive, locating the safe haven of a cabin is the only way to avoid freezing temperatures. Hunger and thirst needs to be monitored. You are completely alone - the only other voice you'll hear in this survival game is the occasional weather report. Oh, and there are no waypoint markers, minimaps, or pre-determined paths to help you navigate its 8x8km landscape. Just a paper map, a compass, and your intuition.

It's grueling stuff - trust me, I've been there - but the biggest killer is that nothing is where you left it. Every time you load into a run in this survival game, Prologue creates a new, procedurally generated map. The assets are the same - it'll always look like a vast woodland in Czechia. But the tech powering Prologue can create millions of map variations, with rivers, cliffs, trees, rocks, bogs, cabins, and that all-important weather station spawning in different places from your last attempt to survive.

It's also trained on open-source, real-world terrain data so that things look super realistic and believable - no freaky, alien, No Man's Sky-style worlds here, thank you.

Prologue's one of the hardest and most atmospheric games I've ever played - and that was several months ago in a fairly early build. But PlayerUnknown Productions is finally ready for everyone to give it a spin.

Prologue's open beta is live right now on Steam and the Epic Games Store, and it'll remain playable until the game reaches early access. No date has been set for that yet, but new features will be added to this beta version of the game as it builds towards that early access launch.

For more solitary experiences, here are the best single-player games. To see what else is on the horizon, our upcoming PC games guide is the place to be.

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