PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is a battle royale game developed and released by PUBG Corporation. It is a multiplayer shooter game that can be played as both a third-person shooter and a first-person shooter, which picked up steam quickly. In December 2017, it reached 3.08 million simultaneous players on Steam, with an all-time peak of 3.23 million concurrent Steam players in January 2018. The game was also named “Best Multiplayer Game“ at The Game Awards 2017, while, PUBG Mobile won a nomination for the “Best Mobile Game“ at The Game Awards 2018. Furthermore, the publisher sold 70 million cumulative units of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds by July 2020. Successful in its own right, PUBG Mobile won the title of the highest-grossing game in 2020, with more than $2.6 billion in revenue.
| PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds | |
|---|---|
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| Developer | PUBG Corporation |
| Publisher | PUBG Corporation |
| Platforms |
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| Release Date | 20 December 2017 |
| Genre | Battle royale |
| Mode | Multiplayer |
Gameplay
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is based on rounds in which up to 100 players parachute to the ground. The position of the airplane varies each round, forcing players to choose the right time to jump out. Players can decide whether to sign up solo, duo, or with a team of up to 4 people. When they land, players have no equipment in their inventory, forcing them to search ghost towns, buildings, and other places to find weapons, vehicles, armor, consumables, and other items required to survive. Occasionally, the airplane will fly over a random part of the map, dropping a loot package with more equipment. Since it trails red smoke, it is visible to all players nearby, evoking combat over it. Also, players can loot killed player’s corpses, and equip what they find. Finally, the last surviving player wins the match.
Maps and game modes
Besides battle royale, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds players can join Arcade Mode, which pits players in an 8 vs. 8 team deathmatch. Event Mode is enabled on occasion too, temporarily introducing custom game modes with fun rules. PUBG has 4 maps used for all game modes, named Erangel, Sanhok, Miramar, and Vikendi. There are also 3 more maps, namely, Karakin (up to 64 players), Paramo (only playable during Season 9), and Haven (up to 32 players at once).
Safe zone and bombs
The safe zone has a center at a random spot on the map. As the match progresses, the safe zone gradually shrinks. This brings surviving players closer together, increasing the frequency of fighting. Additionally, at random intervals, marked areas on the map are highlighted ahead of time, then bombed to prevent camping.
PUBG Lite
The number of players is limited to 60. Additionally, only smaller maps (2×2 km) can be played, primarily Varenga (smaller version of Erangel) and Golden Woods (smaller version of Sanhok). It also introduces a new game mode, EvoGround Mode.
PUBG Mobile/Mobile Lite
Unlike PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds where there’s one protagonist whose gender can be modified but does not affect gameplay, PUBG Mobile introduces more playable characters. Furthermore, players can level them to improve their skills. The only free character is named Victor. Sara, Carlo, and Andy can be purchased with in-game currency. Each character has unique skills – reduced fall damage, better vehicle durability, weapon reloading time, etc.
FAQ
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is not free on PC, Xbox, or PlayStation. However, PUBG Lite is free, which is a toned-down version of the main game intended for the South Asian market after India banned PUBG Mobile. PUBG Mobile for Android and iOS is also free.
Partially. PUBG Cross Party Play only works on consoles and enables Xbox and PlayStation gamers to group up and play together. PUBG on PC is not cross-platform because of the advantage of a gaming mouse and keyboard.
PUBG PTS (Public Test Server) is a server hosted entirely for players to preview and test upcoming features. The aforementioned Cross Party Play was first tested there, as are new weapons, weather, models, bug fixes, etc. Access to a PTS is free for anyone who owns the game on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, but the progress is separate from the main game.
PUBG Corporation is the publisher and developer of the game. However, the person responsible for the creation of PUBG is Brendan “PlayerUnknown“ Greene. Bluehole Studio contacted him in 2015 and he started working on the game as a Creative Director in 2016.
No, PUBG Mobile does not support the use of controllers on Android or iOS for any action except movement. However, you can use a controller or mouse/keyboard through an Android/iOS emulator on a PC. PUBG developers can detect this, and will match you against other players using an emulator to prevent you from gaining an unfair advantage.
This is more of a “can my PC run PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds?“ question. Here are the official system requirements for PUBG on PC, including minimum, recommended, and 144 Hz ones. Also, these are the official system requirements for PUBG Lite on PC. The following are PUBG on Stadia system requirements. As for PUBG Mobile, there are no official requirements, but veteran players state that at a minimum, you should have 2 GB of RAM, at least 2 GB of storage, and a quad-core CPU from a reputable brand such as Qualcomm.
You can download PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds from their shop, the Stadia page, the Steam page, the PlayStation Store, or the Xbox Games page. Furthermore, you can download PUBG for Android and iOS from the PUBG Mobile page, and PUBG Live from the system requirements page mentioned above.
Yes, but not always. PUBG Lite, just like PUBG Mobile, uses bots to help with matchmaking. In other words, if not enough players are in queue to start a match, or if the game kicked a few players after the match started, it will replace them with bots.
PUBG Mobile consumed between 15 MB and 16 MB in a single match for us, which is between 30 and 32 MB per hour. Users with better smart devices who push maximum graphics and 60 frames per second reported data usage of close to 50 MB per hour.
