PUBG Corporation, the developer behind the popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is spinning up a new development studio. Helming the project is industry veteran Glen Schofield, co-founder of Sledgehammer Games. The new studio is called Striking Distance, and it’s based in San Ramon, California.
Big new! I’m proud and honored to announce that I am now part of PUBG Corporation. Working together, we are building a AAA game studio called Striking Distance in San Ramon, CA.
— Glen A. Schofield (@GlenSchofield) 26 June 2019
It has named Glen Schofield as the chief executive officer of a Striking Distance, a new game development studio.
Schofield was a co-founder at Sledgehammer Games, which worked for years on Call of Duty for Activision Blizzard. It leads development on 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and 2017’s Call of Duty: WWII.
He left Activision Blizzard at the end of last year. Earlier in 2018, he and the other Sledgehammer co-founder Michael Condrey had left Sledgehammer for executive roles inside the publisher. Condrey also left Activision Blizzard and is now working at 2K.
Striking Distance will work on “an original narrative experience within the PUBG universe.” PUBG is a battle royale game that focuses on multiplayer. It came out for PC in 2017, and console and mobile versions followed. Rival Fortnite eventually overtook PUBG as the bigger battle royale hit, but PUBG it still making a lot of money. PUBG Corporation made $970 million in revenue in 2018.
In a video posted today on Twitter, Schofield was shown appealing directly to fans of PUBG. But he was also clearly reaching out to potential employees eager to join his team.
“Freedom to explore the PUBG universe has me excited about the possibilities,” Schofield said, “which we view as beyond battle royale.”
“That vision is taken to the next level as our development and service portfolio expands and diversifies with Glen Schofield and Striking Distance,” said PUBG Corporation’s CEO, C.H. Kim. “We are thrilled to welcome Glen to the company. His unique blend of proven leadership and boundless creativity will help us create great synergy.”
In March, Brendan Greene, the Irish expatriate who created PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, left that game’s development team where he served as director. Since that time he’s been involved with a new internal group called PUBG Special Projects.