
Preface is an immersive tech demo showcasing Melba, PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions' groundbreaking technology generating an Earth-scale world. In this project still in development, experience our machine learning agents creating a planet in real-time, directly on your GPU.
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About
Explore a World in the Making
Preface is an immersive tech demo showcasing Melba, PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions' groundbreaking technology generating an Earth-scale world. In this project still in development, experience our Machine Learning agents creating a dynamic planet in real-time, all processed directly on your GPU - with no reliance on cloud services.
A Development Journey
Join us on a journey into the future of world-building. Preface gives you the opportunity to explore a vast Earth-scale world spanning 510 million km² (200 million square miles) and be among the first to witness this new technology, as it takes shape. As we continue to build and refine Melba, your experiences and feedback will play a crucial role.
Your Feedback, Our Path Forward
We believe in community-driven development. That's why we invite you to join us on Discord, where you can engage directly with our dev team, share ideas, provide feedback, and stay informed on the latest updates.
Preface is a tech demo - not a finished product. We’re in an ongoing development phase, so check back regularly to see new features and enhancements as we continue to push the boundaries of ML-driven world generation.

Genres
Stats
Languages: English
Engagement
Reviews
Themes across 40 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
Really incredible tech demo. Sad to see so many people not understanding what they are experiencing. This tech has the ability to reshape gaming.
It is exactly what the devs say it is, a tech demo with no actual play mechanics. You arrive on a grassy field covered by boulders and saplings. You can walk around for a while to get a VERY early idea of where it might be going. It might go nowhere or it might end up great No way to tell now. I've put the main game, Prologue: Go Wayback, on wishlist and will check back every few months.
Interesting tech demo. Don't go into it expecting an actual game (as it seems many other reviewers did). It's just showing off a new technology that uses ML to generate worlds and distribute foliage and whatnot as well as heightmap generation. It's neat, but it won't blow you away. The technology needs to be fine tuned quite a bit and may be improved with a more aggressive approach, increasing the level of detail the ML algorithm allowed to change. Curious to see where it goes.
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Trends
Concurrent players on Steam, sampled daily since tracking started.
Hours played at review time, across 40 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
As a tech demo it is severely lacking in every aspect. Textures, rendering patterns, movement is unplayable to where unless you walked for hours you wouldn't see any of what it has to offer even currently. It is ugly and... just terrible, why make movement so slow and everything pop in with garbage textures if your trying to show off the "underlying" tech as impressive? Anyone comparing this to no mans sky obviously did not own no mans sky at that time, it was void of life sure, and nothing like what it is now, but the engine was obviously useable and it had a lot to show off/do. Maybe years from now this might be something but it did no good by releasing it in its current state and trying to make it seem like more than it is. Procedural generation of repeated patterns using crappy assets, no matter how large the world, is nothing to write home about. As a tech demo, it needs to be shown to its max potential. If there was more than the one single garbage biome I spawned into after a long world genertaion, id never know it. I truly wish some day I eat my words and wish the best of luck with it but I cannot recommend this at all currently either as something that will be revolutionary. Definitely an insane amount of work went into it, nobody can deny that, but that does not automatically make it good.
I'm going to give a positive review, strictly on the basis of the tech in order to achieve this feat. However, as a gamer, this is unimpressive. I wandered for half an hour, and could see the repetitious patterns of the rocks, trees and grass for that entire time. I could not find another biome. The only thing that was different, was the few waypoints I found from other players. Overall, this feels like the initial release of No Mans Sky. Empty, barren, devoid of life and seemingly pointless. I am, however, excited to see what comes of this. The variety of the plants, trees and biomes. The potential for towns, cities, castles, huts, roads, etc. What one could do with a map the size of the earth, who knows. Things I would add to get better feedback, is potentially a "biome teleport" system, or some kind of indicator to show how far, and what biome may be over the horizon. After a half hour, I was tired of walking and seeing the same stuff. That could've been a few hours or more of exploration, had there been more variety within the vicinity, or the ability to see something new. I'll be following this project closely, and would love to add further comments and suggestions as this project shapes up.
They say Earth sized, but I can only walk at a really slow pace. Cant explore anything without falling asleep.
The potential here is incredible. I cant wait to see what the future brings!
Impressive tech, most wouldn't understand what actually goes into something like this. My only gripe is how slow it is to get around, I want to explore more but I don't want to walk for so long.
Gave me a flashback of a bum trip i had once on mushrooms. walking through the forest for hours but getting nowhere, i thought i was stuck in a time and space loop. That was 40 years ago, seems like only yesterday. Ok i think i need to go and lay down for a while.
This small demo is not exactly the idea i had in my head after reading the description but it is doing what is says, it is just that my interpretation had more. It is quite a bare "showcase" as they call it. The developers have a game in the works "Prologue: Go Wayback!". It is to be announced, it will use this tech and i think it is promising.
Audience
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
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