Developer Secures $10M Investment For 1000 Player Game With PUBG-Style Mode

There will be more coy attempts to cash in on PUBG's success. This is not one of those.

2

If you've got a PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds-influenced idea rattling around in your head, now may be a good time to reach out to potential investors. Automaton Games completed an investment round led by Cambridge Venture Partners to create their massive shooter and it includes a space where up to 400 players compete to be the last person standing. 

Automaton Games is a development team founded in 2015 and, since inception, the crew has been working on pushing the boundaries of massively multiplayer online experiences. Automaton has done experiments and technical demos, but their main project is a tactical shooter MMO that supports 1000 concurrent players in one instance or server. The game will contain RPG-style character progression, social hubs, mission systems, and more all within a photo-realistic and dynamic 12km x 12km map. Venturebeat reports that the developers are including a "last man standing" mode for 400 players and it will include the dynamic weather effects of the main game space, including blood trails, fire and water effects, dynamic weather, roaming wildlife, and more. This ambitious project will be powered by SpatialOS, a cloud-based development platform that allows for the creation of incredibly massive interactive worlds when otherwise impossible. 

“We’ve spent the last two years building the technology for a next-generation massively multiplayer online game that requires an entirely new approach to game design and development,” said Automaton CEO James Thompson. “This project delivers an unprecedented fidelity and scale of world simulation and complex interactions between authored and player-driven content. I’m hugely excited that our next step is deploying this $10 million investment to bring the game to launch in 2018.”

The popularity of PUBG is fully evident and continues to grow as the days go by. When any genre has a game that sees astronomical success in a short time, you're almost guaranteed to see an influx of similar titles follow in that game's footsteps. Grand Theft Auto V regularly finds some new life in its online mode and a PUBG influenced experience called Motor Wars is responsible for the latest resurgence. Fortnite, Epic's latest game, has also pivoted away from its standard mode with heavy promotion for its Battle Royale mode. Epic is even making it free for all platforms, fully cashing in on the Last Man Standing buzz. Who's coming up with a Last Man Standing mode next?

Charles Singletary Jr keeps the updates flowing as the News Editor, breaking stories while investigating the biggest topics in gaming and technology. He's pretty active on Twitter, so feel free to reach out to him @The_CSJR. Got a hot tip? Email him at Charles.Singletary@Shacknews.com.

From The Chatty
Hello, Meet Lola