The newest hit PC game “Player PleUnknown’s Battlegrounds” is set to be released to the Xbox One console on Dec. 12. How has this game rose to the best-selling list, had multiple large-scale competitions, and sold more than twenty million copies all before the game is even officially out?
“Battlegrounds” is an early access PC game, which means it is available to play before it is officially released, allowing players to play the buggier and rougher beta until the game officially hits 1.0 and releases. However, the game has already risen to the top of the charts. It sold twenty-two million copies and had three million daily players. “Battlegrounds” has reached massive success, all on the personal computer platform. Now, PUBG, as it is abbreviated by fans, is coming to consoles.
“Battlegrounds” is a battle royale style game based on the simple idea of a large number of players dropping into a location and having to fight until the last person is standing. Think of “The Hunger Games” with more guns and way more participants as a video game. One of the original battle royale games was a modification released for another game, “DayZ,” which emphasized scrounging and player vs. player encounters. This mod was produced by Brendan Greene, also known was PlayerUnknown. Greene later left the mod-making community instead to head a game development studio, and produced a stand-alone battle royale game, now known as “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.” The game was released with Greene’s moniker attached to the title as a way to let players know that this was the same developer who made the very popular game mods. “Battlegrounds” went on to become very popular and the defining game of the genre.
In “Battlegrounds,” one-hundred players are placed in a lobby while the game fills. After the game fills, the players are transported to a cargo plane and allowed to skydive out into any location they’d like on the eight-by-eight-kilometer map. Once the player lands, they need to begin to scavenge for weapons, ammunition, medicine, and clothing. If players cannot find the tools they need, then they will die quickly to another player. After a few minutes from the start of the game, the map begins to contract. A blue wall comes in and converges on a circle, forcing players to be within this circle or else they will take damage and eventually die. This wall mechanic disincentives “camping”, or sitting in a single location or building waiting for another player the open the door, and instead encourages large-scale encounters in fields, urban environments, and underground tunnels. At the end of the match, whoever is left standing is the winner.
Another mechanic in the game is the airdrop. Every few minutes, a plane will fly overhead and drop a crate with items in it. These items range from incredibly good guns that are only in the crate, the best armor in the game, a Ghillie Suit that practically makes players invisible, and the best medicines in the game. The air crates drop in random locations, and players will converge on the location with vehicles, leading to large firefights.
While the core gameplay loop of “Battlegrounds” is simple, it is also addictive to play once players get the hang of it. The game is incredibly rewarding when players do well but also soul-crushing when they lose with good items. Because of this way the game makes players feel, it leads to binge sessions, not unlike a Netflix series binge.
The game also has an online marketplace, where players can sell items and loot crates. Some items, such as a bandana that covers the face, regularly raise to over one-thousand dollars on the store, with some players making a living just by selling items on the Steam marketplace.
The game begins to shine when you begin to look at the gunplay in the game. While not as cartooonish as “Call of Duty” or battle royale competitor “H1Z1,” the game is also not as realistic as a military simulation such as Arma 3. This happy balancing act of not too realistic but not too fake gives “Battlegrounds” a lot of wiggle room to have interesting mechanics but also realistic firearm play. Every gun in the game is based on a real-world gun and feels and is used as its real-life counterpart. Every different type of ammunition acts differently in the game; there are realistic bullet drops and realistic zeroing options on scopes. Every gun feels like its own character and takes time to understand.
While the game is incredibly popular and feels great, it does come with some issues, namely the ones that arise from it being an early access game. The game is buggy, with vehicles often flipping out, players sometimes being desynced from their locations, and instant death pistols. The game also has a large problem with hackers, players who use cheats to become invulnerable, move fast, or able to hit every shot they take instantly. However, these problems are not impossible to fix, and names will come with time. The independent developers of the game “Bluehole” now have the financial and development backing of Microsoft, leading to the Xbox release and better bug fixing and cheat detection.
“Battlegrounds” is incredibly popular as a computer game. However, it has yet to be seen how the game will be received on consoles. The game has much mouse movement, leading to worries about how the controller will work, as controllers need to do everything with buttons and the joysticks. Another worry is that the joysticks will not be as precise with aiming as a mouse. However, some players already use a controller on the PC edition of the game, and swear that it works just fine. Some competitive players even use controllers at eSports competitions.
Despite these worries, the “Battlegrounds” machine continues to barrel along with the PC version officially releasing in late-December and the Xbox version releasing on Dec. 12 with millions of copies already being pre-ordered.
With thousands of sales each day, it is unclear when “Battlegrounds” will stall out, especially with the release imminent, a brand new eight by eight-kilometer map coming, and new weapons and vehicles being released in every patch. It is easy to see that despite the awkward name of the game “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” is here to stay.
