PUBG creator Brendan Greene reduces team and makes final update for Prologue: Go Wayback!

Brendan Greene, creator of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and founder of PlayerUnknown Productions, announced his company has to scale back its team and it has made its final update to Prologue: Go Wayback!, a survival game in early access.

In posts on Twitter (X) and Steam, Greene said that he has funded the game to date, but now he must move forward “with a smaller team while finding the right partners for the project.”

This means that Prologue will be available for free for players but the team will not update it from now on.

Greene started development Prologue years ago as a survival game where you randomly spawn into a map and then try to survive long enough to exit the map at a weather station. It was part of an ambitious trio of games where Greene hoped to eventually prove the viability of a metaverse-like experience that could be published directly to the web. Greene had money from PUBG’s success and he funded the project on his own and with the help of partners, but now time is running out for that approach.

Hi everybody,

The games industry has been in a tough spot for a while, and we’re not alone in the struggle to find funding. I'm privileged to have had the choice to keep the studio's lights on by myself, and I'm very aware that it's a luxury few developers have when they go… https://t.co/xaq9TvT9wP

— PLAYERUNKNOWN (@PLAYERUNKNOWN) June 19, 2026 “The games industry has been in a tough spot for a while, and we’re not alone in the struggle to find funding,” Greene wrote. “I’m privileged to have had the choice to keep the studio’s lights on by myself, and I’m very aware that it’s a luxury few developers have when they go independent. I could only do that for so long, and now we must move forward with a smaller team while finding the right partners for the project. I want to thank my team at @pp_socials for their professionalism.”

Prologue: Go Wayback can keep generating wilderness landscapes to explore Source: PlayerUnknown Productions He added, “This was not an easy decision to take. But despite the challenges and uncertainty we faced this past year, their efforts showed me what a great studio culture we built together. The game we built is now free for everyone. I’m so very proud of what our team accomplished and truly regret we couldn’t finish the journey we began together. I hope everyone will enjoy exploring the wildernesses of @playprologue as much as I have (400+ hours & still counting).”

Greene is still working on a new game engine dubbed Melba, and he said “our progress on Melba inspires me daily. “

He added, “I love what we have achieved and built as a team. Nearly every day on the studio’s Slack channels, the team posted something that filled me with hope, inspiration and excitement about the vision we are building across our projects. Our team is still actively developing our in-house Melba technology. Anyone interested in our progress can follow our development via our tech demo, Preface: Undiscovered World, on Steam, where we regularly share updates.”

Brendan Greene is founder of PlayerUnknown Productions. Source: GamesBeat/Dean Takahashi For the Prologue Go Wayback! community, he sent a note of thanks.

“Your creativity, passion and enjoyment of the worlds we’ve created was truly heartening. And for all the great suggestions and ideas passed to us over the last year, thank you; you helped us build a game of which I’m immensely proud,” Greene wrote.

He said that Prologue: Go Wayback! is available for free and he added, “We wish we could have completed this journey with you, but we hope players will enjoy what we created. A final update adds trails, new items, fixes, and access to our dev build.”

While work on Prologue is stopping, the studio will continue in a smaller size to keep developing its core technology, Melba.

Now that’s a view. Source: PlayerUnknown Productions “Our work on Melba has helped us with how we generate realistic terrain in Go Wayback! but it has always been a separate project from the game. You can continue to follow our progress on developing Melba in our tech demo Preface: Undiscovered World,” he wrote.

The team has just released Prologue: Go Wayback! out of Early Access because it felt inappropriate to leave it in Early Access when the team cannot continue developing it.

“This wasn’t the plan we had for a full release when we started with Early Access, but we felt this would be the best way to leave the game available on Steam without setting the wrong expectations from future store page visitors and players,” Greene wrote.

He said that Prologue: Go Wayback! is made in Unreal Engine 5, and the team has left it unencrypted which means players should be able to open its files and mod the game if they want to.

“We had plans for official mods and documentation but unfortunately did not have the time or resources to complete those plans,” Greene said.

He also said the team has been working with Steam to find the best way to offer refunds to any player who has purchased the game since the launch of Early Access, while respecting player choice. He said his firm will be offering self-refunds, without restrictions on playtime or how long ago you bought the game, for a period of 60 days until August 17, 2026.

Prologue: Go Wayback has started its open beta. Source: PlayerUnknown Productions How to request a refund:

While logged into Steam, go to Help -> Steam Support

Go to Purchases, and find the game on that page or in your full Purchase History list available via “View complete purchasing history” at the bottom

Select the game

Select I would like a refund

You can leave a reason that the game has discontinued development

Steam support is informed and should be granting a refund without any questions



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