When I first played Prologue: Go Wayback! at the beginning of 2025, my first thought was ‘Boy, this would be great if there were a bear or two in these woods’. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the survival loop of roaming around, damp and hungry, but I always thought animals would add a little bit of life to the map.
But alas, any hope of getting chased through the woods by a bear has been struck down as PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, clarified what is and isn’t on the table for Prologue’s upcoming DLCs.
(Image credit: PlayerUnknown Productions)
“Number two requested feature, can you add animals?” Greene tells me. “But, if we add animals, that would mean you need something to defend from animals. While we can technically add animals, as we figured out pathfinding stuff for the world, it’s a lot of resources to program good AI for animals. You want them to feel real, especially in the world we’re building.
“So to get it to the stage that I’d be happy with would require a lot of resources and time. I want to spend that time focused on building a more complete world, with paths, power lines, and even bigger points of interest that are not just cabins. That’s where I want to focus the team, rather than adding more things for you to worry about. I think the weather is sufficiently worrying at this stage.”
But just because we won’t be hunting rabbits or wrestling wolves any time soon doesn’t mean that the devs don’t want to make Prologue a little livelier. “I’d like to see underground areas,” Greene explains. “I’m not sure we can do them yet, but I want to see this idea, because that’s part of the story as well, getting access to this. Because I’m thinking, if we can do this, maybe it’s a DLC one, where you have to get access to underground areas on the map that appear. So this kind of it’s, I’d like to see that, but for now, it’ll be more larger points of interest with a few cabins or more interesting buildings, rather than just a single point of interest.”
(Image credit: PlayerUnknown Productions)
Prologue has already had a fair few new features added in the weeks it’s been in early access. There have been a couple of hot fixes and two new modes added, one for casuals (me) and one for players who want to make life as hard as possible for themselves. But it’s unlikely that the devs stick too rigidly to this cadence for updates.
“We don’t want to lock it down too tightly, because, again, working with the community in early access, so these plans can be changed sometimes,” Greene explains. “For Prologue, I imagined about a year in early access. Maybe more, depending on when the sort of generation tech is stable enough. And then we planned three DLCs where we can add story points and lower points, while adding more depth to the world.”
As was mentioned above, these DLCs would not just add a story to Prologue alongside new places of interest like caverns; there’s also a possibility that multiplayer could be brought to the game.
(Image credit: PlayerUnknown Productions)
“I keep saying, co-op multiplayer, DLC three,” Greene says. “That’s what I’d like to see. But if the producer is reading this, I’d like them to know that there is no stress putting multiplayer in just now. Although it is one of the most requested things.”
Aside from getting mauled by a bear, multiplayer would be my most anticipated feature for Prologue. The beautiful yet mysterious world lends itself wonderfully to exploring with friends. I’m sure players would also find new ways to break or shake up the game with a friend by their side. But all of this is still fairly far away, and in the meantime, the devs are seemingly focused on just providing the best experience possible to players.
“To get out of Early Access, I’d really like to see the world with a little bit more infrastructure,” Greene says. “Essentially infinite forest and the vista, because a bit sort of low at the moment. These are kind of like visual tweaks, but also optimisation tweaks to really make the game run well.”
