PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds 'guaranteed' to leave Early Access by October [Updated]

Update: It seems despite his words earlier this year, Brendan Greene isn't as confident with regards to PUBG's full release as he once was—having now pushed the game "back from initial 6-month timeframe." 

Head over here for Greene's updated statement issued to PC Gamer. 

Original story:

The meteoric rise of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has been staggering. Alongside a host of pre-release updates, the MMO battle royale recently hit four million sales in just three months—a feat all the more impressive given its Early Access status. Yet, despite the numbers, there remains a large chunk of prospective players who won't pick up Bluehole's runaway hit till it's launched in full. 

Which is fair enough. The question is, then: when can we expect PUBG's final release?

According to its Steam Early Access blurb, Brendan Greene—aka PlayerUnknown himself—suggests he and his team "don't expect Early Access to last longer than six months." In an interview with RPS at Rezzed earlier this year, one week following the game's EA launch, Greene was however far more forthright. 

"Game development is hard. What makes it hard is, we work with Unreal, which is a joy because they have a company that is focused on making an engine," he says. "So there’s 40 people just working on code for the engine. You look at Daybreak and Bohemia, they’re working on their own engines, and that’s just infinitely harder. I think the ForgeLight engine is a ten year old engine. Now, they’ve improved it considerably since then, but it’s the same with the Arma engine, it’s 15 years old. Now DayZ are making a new engine, and that’s just something which takes time.

"It’s something a lot of people don’t understand and they get a lot of hate because of that. I just try to correct them whenever I can. It’s like, listen, guys, they will get finished. Companies are not going to abandon games like that, you know? People say, ‘oh, DayZ will never be finished,’ and of course it will. People tell us we’re not going to be out of early access in six months; challenge accepted. I can guarantee you, six or seven months and we’re out of early access. It’s the team. It’s a matter of honour, you know? We will finish this game in six months."

Which would see PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds launched in full before the end of October, assuming all goes to plan.

In the meantime, this here might be the deadliest attack I've seen yet:

Deputy Editor, PC Gaming Show
Latest in Battle Royale
Shohei Ohtani wearing Samurai Shohei outfit in Fortnite
The best baseball player alive is coming to Fortnite, and so is his dog
Fortnite jacked Peter Griffin
Parents are suing Epic over Fortnite item shop 'FOMO' timers they say are inaccurate and manipulative
talk to the joneses fortnite
Epic's war against the Fortnite fraudsters sees it simultaneously name and shame alleged ne'er-do-wells as its high-powered lawyers sue them
Twisted Metal - Sweet Tooth
Apparently the canceled Twisted Metal game would have been a battle royale where you could get out of your car for some reason
talk to the joneses fortnite
Epic will give Fortnite cheaters 'a second chance' with a new, more forgiving ban policy, as long as they didn't do anything too awful or illegal
Fortnite skin for Master Chief from Halo
Don't stress, Epic Games says you can still unlock Fortnite's Xbox-exclusive Master Chief skin
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened