Who is PLAYERUNKNOWN?

(gunshots) (upbeat music) (gunshots) (screaming) - [Danny] Let's rewind a bit. In march of 2017, a game with the curious title Player Unknown's Battlegrounds became available on Steam Early Access. Part of a lineage of Battle Royale style multi-player mode stemming back half a decade Battleground's elevator pitch was pretty interesting. 100 unarmed players parachute onto an island littered with weapons and the last one alive game on Twitch and Steam. It's oversold World of Warcraft, has more concurrent players on Steam than DOTA and has triple A developers pivoting to cash in on the Battle Royale revolution. The game hasn't technically been released yet and it's already a PC gaming classic. While the story of its lineage may appear to live in the gaming, there son element of this story that still remains untold. The person behind the name Player Unknown. I've been trying to get a hold of him for months ever since I learned he was Irish like myself. We eventually found ourselves in the same city at Pax West in Seattle so I drove him to our rented apartment for a little chat. My first question, how does a kid from Ireland grow up with such an affinity for military simulators? In hindsight, I guess I should have seen the answer coming. - I was born in Donegaland my dad was in the Army based in Finnair, he got transferred down to the Curragh after him commuting basically every week down to the Curragh for a while. We moved down to New bridge and then eventually out to the Curragh camp and I grew up there basically. An army brat. - [Interviewer] An army brat? - Yes. - [Interviewer] In Ireland ,there's not many of them. - No, no, I mean it was funny because growing up as a kid because I was in officers quarters you didn't mix with other kids on the camp because there weren't very many other officers kids you mix with and I wasn't living near any of my friends so it was weird growing up because you had your friends in school but then outside of school it was like at home on the camp so you did obstacle course sand watch army people play with guns, it was great. - [Interviewer] So you just grew up in an environment surrounded by- - Oh yeah, like APC's tanks. There was a bomb house down the back of our house which is like a practice house for the ranger wing and other guys and you'd just go down and watch them breach the house and throw flash bangs and stuff like that into the house. So that was fun and they'd sometimes come over and show you their guns and it was nice as an 11, 12-year-old seeing a 44 magnum and stuff like this, you know. I always loved that, even growing up we would travel to Donegal over summers and I'd buy guns and ammo and stuff like that which led to some interesting stuff on the border crossing on the north where they'd come through and check the bus and see guns and ammo but I just loved weapons and that's why I was drawn to this military type games. (gunshots) (shouting) I just love the idea that you have bullet drop and you have realistic ballistics and realism and military and the multiplayer aspect was great because you had so many custom-made game mode sand custom-made maps and it kind of showed me the power of modding basically and this idea that the user was the content creator and not just the studio that makes the game. I played the major A titles like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed and these kinds of games and they were fine but even playing Battlefield and Call of Duty online, there was just too much information and the constant respawning and this kind of stuff and it wasn't my bag at all. I wanted, that's why I loved America's Army because you had one life. The war rounds you could respawn but the most popular game mode was you had one life and that's it and if you did something stupid you died and waited and watched the other people play. I love that idea, I love that idea that it valued your character and kind of looking back because I've done so many interviews and panels now that I get a chance to reflect on why I love those games and how they affected Battle Royale and that sort of idea of one life kind of carried heavily into the original Battle Royale game mode. - [Interviewer] Something interesting about a kid who grew up on an army base playing a game that was an army recruitment tool. - Yeah I knew it was defense forces but I didn't care because it looked really real and for me it was about the realism and the fact that I thought okay if the American Army are making this and the weapons are gonna work right and everything is gonna be as real as they can make it and I like that and I like the fact that you had that entry barrier if you wanted to be a sniper you had to do the course and you had to sit there for an hour and do this course and I love that because it was teaching you something and yeah I wasn't gonna be an army man I tried out for the Irish army but I was color deficient so I didn't get in. - [Interviewer] Your eyes? - Yeah, yeah. In the exam they found out I was color deficient red, green which I don't think I am because I can see red and green.