The long-promised option to choose which map you play on in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is “almost complete”, developers PUBG Corp said today, though we will need to wait a little longer. If you fancy skipping one map or playing a particular one, you’ll have that option. The devs had expressed concerns that adding map select might increase matchmaking times an unpleasant amount but, after analysing data from tens of millions of matches, seem confident that it shouldn’t cause problems. They shared a look at the work-in-progress option and yup, it looks simple enough. Read the rest of this entry »

Codename: Savage, the new 4x4km map in development for Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, today is back in closed beta testing after handing out more keys over the weekend. Savage returns with several new areas, dynamic weather that continues to change throughout the round, and some interesting changes to the safe zone. Developers PUBG Corp say that Savage’s blue ring of death can now “calculate and adjust its waiting time based on the number of players left alive,” which I’d be interested to see them try on the regular maps too.

Back on the main client, the game this week will add a flight path map marker as well as new weapon skins – including for its iconic pan. Read the rest of this entry »

Grab nine of your closest murderpals because the latest Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds event mode is going big. War, as it’s named, is a 10v10v10 team deathmatch mode going down in static small circles. Players rain down from the skies already equipped with random gear, then battle to be the first team to hit the frag limit. And yup, this mode does have respawning. War may be good for absolutely nothing, but War mode looks a lark.

In other news, the new small map, Codename: Savage, is returning to closed testing next week. More beta keys will be available from Saturday. Read the rest of this entry »

Another day, another patch for Plunkbat, that semi-popular game colloquially known as Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds to some people called Brendan. It’s a game-changer today, making the murder-fields tragically less fashionable, but slightly more functional. From this day forth, no longer will random, extraneous items of clothing be spawned in the middle of otherwise-useful piles of weaponry. End of an era, I know.

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Now that every last Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds player has settled on using the nickname ‘Plunkbat’, what does creator Brendan “Playerunknown” Greene think?

“No,” he told Shacknews over the weekend as they discussed nicknames then teamed up to shame us all. “I don’t get that. Like, really. It’s people trying to be edgy, and it’s like I’m not a fourteen-year-old kid, you know what I mean? It’s like ‘Oh ho it’s so edgy ahh’.”

Greene, whose signature in-game outfit includes a hooded leather coat and five studded leather legstraps, has it backwards: Plunkbat is a goofball name opposing the game’s own edgy wrapping, a celebration of how silly this 100-player murderfest is. It’s contrary, absolutely, but the opposite of edgy. Read the rest of this entry »

A new event mode starts in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds tonight, and it focuses on something close to my heart. For three days, the Tequila Sunrise squad mode will arm everyone with only shotguns and melee weapons for a showdown on Miramar starting with a smaller safe zone. I’m delighted. I’m a sucker for the tension and risk/reward of weapons which fire slowly but can spit wild damage, and often found clinging to my over-and-under shotgun for as long as possible. Let’s do this.

In other Plunknews, a team deathmatch mode with respawning, named War, has popped up unannounced in its Custom Match options. Those rounds are fiddly to get into but hey, it’s there now if you really want it. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great comforts in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is knowing that the squad which killed you and the lads absolutely, definitely, 100% went on to win the game – who else could defeat you? This week, the battle royale FPS will start letting players verify this by watching the rest of the round through their killer’s eyes. Then through the eyes of their killer’s killer if they die too. And so on. It’s murder all the way down.

Developers PUBG Corp have also started testing the new 4x4km map in a closed beta. The initial test quickly ran out of keys but more are planned for the coming weeks, and for now we outsiders can watch others playing it. Read the rest of this entry »

In the ongoing war against lag in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, the developers are considering a soft form of region lock to stop distant players lagging up other regions’ servers. Should the plan go ahead, Plunkers won’t be able to see and play on a server outside their region unless they’re in a squad together with someone who is in its region. This still just a potential change at this point, not decided, and still a way away.

A lot sooner, weapon skins are coming to Plunkbat. The next update will add them in two new crates, one of which requires a paid key to open. They are mostly ugly. Read the rest of this entry »

The very surface of the games industry as we know it is still a free-flowing mass of magma, all recognizably solid ground reduced to dust by the shocking impact of the hyper-popular Battle Royale shooter genre, accelerated to planet-smashing speeds by the rise of high-end PC gaming in China.

With the very future of the industry still unsure (well, more unsure than usual), it’s almost hard to believe that this cataclysmic event happened just a year ago. In a video released alongside their GDC appearance, the lead developers of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds shared their thoughts on the past twelve months, plus a little glimpse at the upcoming island map.

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To help keep the action spicy, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is introducing special time-limited event modes. They’ll change the rules of the 100-player murderfest, and sometimes introduce new items. The first mode of Event Mode, as it’s named, doubles squad sizes to eight players. Four players is an okay stag or hen weekend, but with eight you’ll have a gay old time belting out songs while bouncing along in a convoy. This mode is now live on the test server and should hit the main client later this week. Future modes might be a little more creative, the devs say, and the next will include an airdrop-calling flare gun. Read the rest of this entry »

Tensions run high in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds but the emotions are simple: I would like to shoot you; I would prefer you not shoot me; oi oiiiiiii! These can be deduced by context but, for players who believe they have rich emotional lives which absolutely must be shared with everyone, the battle royale ’em up now has little emote animations. These carefully express emotions ranging from “I surrender; please do not shoot me” through “I am angry enough to shoot someone” and even “I could kiss you, you absolutely bloody legend.” Today’s update seems a good’un in general, bringing a lot of welcome fixes and quality-of-life tweaks. Read the rest of this entry »

If you tried to take the laaads on another Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds stag do over the weekend but found the game stumbling and crashing even before the Jägerbombs started to fall, know that it was caused by a wonky update to the game’s cheat-blocking technology. Developers PUBG Corp launched a new anti-cheat update on Friday morning but, after two days of complaints about crashes and poor performance, decided to undo the update. The cause was… hazy. The devs say it seems that having certain other programs open while playing caused weird interactions with the anti-cheat but they weren’t sure which, how many, or why. Read the rest of this entry »

The next Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds map will be a little 4x4km one–25% the size of its current two–and we’ll get to play it on test servers next month. Developers PUBG Corp today laid out some of their plans for Plunkbat across 2018, which range from fancy additions like the little new level to refining and overhauling a number of existing parts. Expect prettier houses, new game modes, emotes, new vehicles, new sounds, more custom game options, more performance improvements, more anti-cheat, more, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it? Read the rest of this entry »

Two new crates of clothing items have arrived in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, one of them paid and one free. I am told they are inspired by 70s and 80s fashion. The odds are still that the crates will give you hideous clothing, just terrible, real awful looks, but at least there’s no chance of the game casually handing you one which requires buying a key to open it. The new paid crate is not thrown into the regular reward pool, see, so you’ll only get one if you want it. Today’s update also includes a few changes meant to improve performance, though it’s not clear how effective they are. Read the rest of this entry »

The problem of high-ping players disrupting Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds matches with their jerky movement and wonky hit detection hopefully won’t continue for much longer, as developers PUBG Corp have announced plans to start testing a solution this week. Having previously considered the approach of a maximum ping limit, they now say they’re going to divide matchmaking pools by ping, putting low-ping players together and placing HPBs in a screeching dialup pen. The devs don’t know when this will properly launch in the main game for everyone, but they plan to start testing in some regions sometime this week.

They’re also starting to mutter about future plans for the game, including a new map. Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, you can expect a stag & hen weekend to get rowdy when 100 hungover top lads are dropped onto an island brimming with guns, but cheating just isn’t cool. There’s a fine line between banter and being an arse, Gary. In their ongoing battle to keep Gary and his cheaty mates out of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, the developers have been working on new anti-cheat tech of their own. Following a stretch in testing, this should hit the main servers next week. The devs say they are planning to make it less strict about blocking non-cheaty software which hooks innocently into the game – but ReShade is definitely banned. Read the rest of this entry »

People are leaving Miramar in droves. A confusingly large number of people apparently prefer the original Erangel map, which is why I’ve seen player counts dwindle as people leave at the start of a desert match, seeking greener pastures. Nowadays, those kids are even editing game files so they automatically leave a round when it loads up Miramar.

Today’s update to the test servers for Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds seeks to tempt some of those players back. My guess is if anything’s going to do that, it’ll be the promise of extra buildings and cover across the map. I haven’t tried it myself yet though, so the jury’s still out.

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Though Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds now has two maps, it does not have an option to choose which you play. While the devs do plan to add one, for now players have used sneaky tricks to get the map they want. Some disconnect from servers if the randomly-selected map isn’t what they want. And, it turns out, some make it simpler by outright removing one map’s files. The game does still run, but any time it tries to join a game on the undesired map it’ll return right to the menu. One player even made a tool to remove maps easily. It’s awkward that there still isn’t a map-select option. Read the rest of this entry »

At the start of every Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds match, players wake up confused and hungover after a fierce night on the lash at their stag and hen parties. They blink, squint at the 99 other zombies, search in vain for a Red Bull or ideally a fried breakfast, then pass out before awaking on a plane. This will change, a little. With the next update (currently live on the test servers), the game will split players in the loading lobby between several different areas of the map. Having 100 people in the same spot harms performance too much, the devs say, so they’re spreading people out. Guns will be removed from the lobby too. Read the rest of this entry »

The blue circle of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is a mysterious god. We cannot predict its whims, only hope that it favours us – then we thank it for its benevolence. Inside the circle is life, outside is death. Some say the circle gives the game structure by forcing us closer together, but I don’t think the circle cares or even knows we’re there. The-closing wall of electrodeath’s whims and motives will soon change again, as the developers are now testing changes to its speed and movements.

The devs are also gabbing about cheats, saying they’re preparing to wipe out another 100,000 cheaters they’ve found – and warning that if you’re fuming thinking you’ve spotted a cheater in a replay, it might just be a bug. Read the rest of this entry »