LOS ANGELES—Though you may have only heard of Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene in the past year thanks to the stratospheric success of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), gamers have known his work for far longer. His work on the "battle royale" genre goes back to mods he developed for the shooters ARMA III and H1Z1—a fact that's often lost on fans who don't realize Greene worked on those older games, as well.

We offered Greene an opportunity to clear up that historical confusion during a chance encounter at last month's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The result is the above illuminating interview. It includes a few revealing nuggets, many of which go all the way back to his work on the military shooter ARMA III—and how he modded it to better resemble the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale.

Circle, circle, square, square

Greene is particularly frank about his games' biggest difference from those films: the way the battle-filled islands shrink down over time to ratchet up tension. The films do this by crossing out squares on a map's grid, but Greene opted to use a constantly shrinking circle for two reasons: to simplify gameplay, and to compensate for his own admitted lack of coding talent.

"Having zoned-off squares on the island led to issues during game design," Greene tells Ars. "What if the two last players are separated by a number of squares, so they can't find each other? How can we get around this? A circle is one way. It keeps all the players in one area, and it gets smaller within each other.

"Doing a circle was easier for me to code," Greene adds, "because I couldn't code squares."

When pressed about the Japanese book and films that inspired his original mods, Greene becomes surprisingly humble. "I don't know if [original film actor] Takeshi Kitano even knows about the game!" Greene says. "I'd like to think he did, but I doubt it. I think he has far more important things to be worrying about."

"Fans of games will hate me"

This year's E3 saw a few major series pledging to launch their own battle royale-inspired modes, particularly Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Battlefield V. Greene had nothing but optimism and excitement to offer when asked about upcoming contenders.

"I'm interested to see what Call of Duty does, to see the Black Ops way of doing battle royale," Greene says. "I'm interested to see if Battlefield will do something to the game mode that I created." (The interview took place shortly before EA confirmed that series' battle royale plans.)

Unprompted, Greene suggested that another existing series, which hasn't announced any battle royale plans, should join the fun: "Who wouldn't want to see For Honor battle royale, right?" After commenting on how that Ubisoft game's medieval combat could benefit from the genre's conventions, he clarifies his position: "The 'last-man-standing' concept is flexible to anything. Fans of games will hate me for suggesting that we could put battle royale in everything."

Greene offers more thoughts in the above video, including a comparison between the current trend of battle royale games and the "MOBA explosion" of a few years ago. The creator also discusses his thoughts on the modding community and his excitement over how battle royale games are helping old friends reconnect. "I get told a lot when I meet fans that they play with college friends they haven't seen in 10 years, and now they play every friday night together," Greene says. "It's not high-paced all the time. There's a flow to it."