Among my top game previews this year is Prologue, the exciting debut from PlayerUnknown Productions. Yes, we’re talking about Brendan Greene, the visionary creator behind PUBG. He’s brewing up something truly ambitious. This game skillfully blends advanced terrain generation technology with the core elements of the most engaging survival experiences. Prologue offers a significantly tougher challenge than its deceptively simple premise implies: you spawn into a randomly generated world, battle the harsh environment, and aim to reach a distant weather tower. After extensive playtesting, PlayerUnknown Productions is now ready to unleash Prologue into early access this November, packed with a host of new features to mark its grand arrival.
As a survival game, Prologue masterfully avoids unnecessary complexity while delivering a genuinely brutal experience. You’ll constantly monitor your hunger, thirst, and body temperature to prevent dangerous drops as you trek through vast, procedurally generated forests far from the safety of your starting cabin. Other cabins are scattered throughout the world, providing crucial shelter, better clothing, food supplies, and cooking facilities. Their approximate locations are marked on a physical map, which you’ll use alongside your compass. Beyond these aids, the game offers very little hand-holding to guide you to the final weather tower. Depending on how the world generates around you, finding it might be a visual trek or an unexpectedly grueling expedition.
While many games feature procedurally generated spaces – like No Man’s Sky – Prologue distinguishes itself by creating incredibly realistic and believable terrain that dynamically responds to Mother Nature’s whims. Heavy rainfall can transform muddy areas into treacherous quagmires that impede your movement. Rocks become dangerously slick in cold, wet conditions. As night falls, visibility plummets, but opportune flashes of lightning during a thunderstorm might briefly illuminate your path.
PlayerUnknown Productions has spent recent months meticulously refining its terrain generation and weather systems. They’ve also added practical new items such as binoculars and matchbooks for starting crucial fires. However, the biggest transformation for Prologue will arrive with its early access launch next month.
Beyond the core ‘Go Wayback!’ survival challenge, new game modes and custom settings will be introduced, allowing players to fine-tune their Prologue experience. A dedicated free roam mode invites you to simply explore a generated world, perfect for familiarizing yourself with navigation and capturing stunning screenshots without the constant threat of, well, dying. Conversely, the ‘Objective: Survive’ mode strips away the tower goal, instead challenging you to last as long as possible against the elements. Custom settings offer complete freedom to adjust difficulty to your preference – manipulate weather conditions, increase cabin density, pause the flow of time, and much more.
Adding to this impressive roster of features is a brand new map editor. While the randomized terrains are, in my opinion, a key part of Prologue’s charm, this editor empowers you to craft and import custom map designs that the game will seamlessly integrate into its generation. For instance, the new early access trailer even showcases someone incorporating a maze layout directly into one of Prologue’s vast maps.
Mark your calendars: Prologue enters early access on Thursday, November 20. It will be available on both Steam and the Epic Games Store.
If you’re looking for more immersive single-player experiences where you can lose yourself for hours, many excellent titles are available. While other open-world games often feature more hand-crafted environments, Prologue offers a unique and boundless exploration for truly intrepid adventurers.
What survival games are currently occupying your time, and are you planning to dive into Prologue? Share your thoughts and, if you venture into the game, feel free to share your stunning screenshots with the community.