PUBG will hit v1.0 (inc. new desert map) in late Dec

They've talked before about getting it down before the year's out, but we've now got a more precise window for when industry-disrupting death circus Playerunknown's Battlegrounds will become a full-fat PC game release. The devs last night made the spooktacular announcement that they're now planning on putting out version 1.0 in late December. In other words, it's sayonara to Steam Early Access after what (by December) will have been an eyewateringly successful 10 months in open development, and hello to whatever the hell 'gone gold' means in terms of game development means these days.

No doubt we'll see various known and unknown tweaks and additions come the day, but of course the Very Big Deal for PUBG 1.0 is the release of the new desert map.

PC Plunkbat 1.0 roughly coincides with the planned release of the game on Xbox One on Dec 12, although that is happening via the Xbox Game Preview program, aka Microsoft's own console equivalent of early access. The Steam version 1.0 is due 'late' December and, as PUBG Corp CEO Chang Han Kim states in this here announcement, will follow a slightly different roadmap to the console edition. "Various Xbox One features and functionality will change and come online over time just like they have on PC, with our goal being to have both versions align to each other as soon as possible," he says, the implication there being that PC will generally get new stuff first. AS IS ONLY RIGHT.

He also notes that "We’re approaching development on Xbox One with the same community-driven focus that we’ve taken with the game on PC. As a result, the ultimate battle royale experience that fans play on Xbox One will be slightly different than what players know today on PC." I.e. console players are likely to respond differently than PC players, and that may drag development down alternative but parallel paths.

More importantly, PC v1.0 of Plunkbat is due to bring with it the much-anticipated and surprisingly colourful new desert map. It's Mexico-inspired and not afraid of a few outlandish details, such as wrestling arenas and settlements built inside meteor craters (more details of that over on jaunty RPS fansite PC Gamer).

Ahead of that, we should see the new climbing and vaulting skills added to test servers at some point this week.

In terms of the Xbox release (and with a little bit of talk about v1.0), here's Playerunknown himself chatting on-stage about it to Microsoft folk at the currently-ongoing Paris Games Week.