PUBG: Battlegrounds

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds for PC and XONE is an online Battle Royale game developed by the Korean Bluehole studio led by Brendan Green – known to the gaming community under the alias PlayerUnknown. Green has been responsible for developing the Battle Royal mods for such games as Arma II and Arma III; moreover, he has been working on the King of the Kill mod for H1Z1.

Mechanics

In terms of its mechanics, the PC and XONE release of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds resembles a mixture of the realism known from the Arma series, and the arcade nature distinctive for H1Z1. As befits a Battle Royale game, PUBG delivers matches, in which a large group of players is thrown right in the middle of a large map with one objective – to survive longer than the other players and eliminate all the opponents. An additional difficulty lies in a continuously shrinking area – a player has to be inside an electric barrier limiting the battlefield; otherwise, they’re as good as dead.

Players’ characters are transported over the battlefield with an airplane. It is up to a player to decide where do they want to begin the match – it only takes a parachute jump from the plane and plummeting towards the selected region of the map. Upon landing, one can select between first-person and third-person perspectives. Then, players have to set off to explore the abandoned and devastated post-communist buildings in order to acquire weapons, armor, and other pieces of gear that might provide a tactical advantage over the enemies. Some of the items, such as backpacks and bulletproof vests, have three levels of quality that ensure various statistics for the character. Moreover, players can modify their weapons with multiple upgrades, e.g. extended clips, silencers, buttstocks, ammunition bags, special gun-sights, and many more. Each upgrade changes weapon’s parameters and significantly influences the gameplay. The key to success lies in the utilization of proper tactics allowing a player to eliminate the largest number of his opponents and surviving for as long as possible.

Additionally, players get at their disposal different vehicles that facilitate the movement around the vast maps – one can drive an off-road vehicle, a sedan, a modern buggy-type vehicle, as well as a motorcycle. Each vehicle requires fuel – a player has to tend to it before each ride.

When traversing the map, a player can utilize a clear map and use markers for planning the tactics. As a result of continuous effort and inevitable gunfights, one’s character is bound to lose his energy and health shown in two separate bars in the interface. In order to regain the lost portion of health, a player can reach for energy drinks, painkillers, medkits, and many other first-aid items.

For each match, a player is awarded a certain amount of points, which can be increased for each kill, damage, and ranking score. These points can be spent on crates with random pieces of gear as well as weapons’ modifications, additional pieces of equipment, and modification of character’s appearance (this regards character’s sex, face, and hairstyle).

Game modes

The PC and XONE release of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds offers multiplayer modes only – up to 100 players can play simultaneously in one match. Nonetheless, one can choose if he wants to enter the battle alone or in a team of two or four. When playing in a team, player’s character does not die upon losing all his health points – he falls to the ground and has to crawl to the nearest ally before a new bar that is activated disappears. A player has a limited amount of time to find someone who will give him a new lease of life.

Technical aspects

Unlike his previous projects, Green has decided to base the PC and XONE release of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on the technology offered by Unreal Engine 4; nonetheless, the number of modifications implemented into the engine makes the game much different from similar productions using the same technology developed by Epic. This results in mediocre optimization and only a decent level of visuals. None of this, however, stands in developers’ way to continuously support the game with new content.

Last updated on 18 January 2022