| DATA | |
|---|---|
| Other names | PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds |
| Developer(s) | PUBG Studios |
| Genre | Battle royale |
| Platform(s) |  |
| Release date | 2017-12-20 |
While I'm not reluctant to try "modern" games (read: those released after 2010 or so), I do tend to stay away from the "popular" ones, the kind that move large numbers of kids and teens to say stupid things on social media and consume content of questionable quality, usually backed by intense and cringey marketing campaigns. So it was only natural that, when a couple of friends told me to join them to play PUBG for a few laughs, my reaction was to raise an eyebrow in disbelief.
A couple of months later, my surprising verdict was clear: it's not actually a bad game. It will keep you entertained, engaged even if you choose to play solo against teams (with that constant feel of being hunted, the stress of survival). But there are a few issues that lower its score, and the experience can be inconsistent across sessions. A mixed bag. So I want to make clear that the score you'll see at the end of the article only applies if you somehow don't suffer any of these problems, and your matches go smoothly. Otherwise, well, subtract as many points as needed from it.
The first impression is not a good one. After downloading many GB, you're welcomed by a lengthy launch process while the game enables the hundreds of layers of intrusive anti-cheat protection (spoiler: they're useless, cheaters are rampant), only to finally arrive at a confusing main menu where your first thought is "Did I just walk into a casino?" There are a lot of shiny things designed to stimulate your brain and prompt you to act, for example by spending real money to buy useless crap in one of the many seasonal collaborations with real life brands. Cars, clothing, even K-pop groups. Yeah, it's outlandish. A Reddit user that bothered to count the many different types of currencies in the game found that were close to 10. The system is stupid and confusing.
Luckily, it's not a requirement. Every player begins the match with the same gear (i.e. a parachute) and needs to scavenge for the rest, and the stuff you buy or unlock only customizes the looks of it all. You can get skins that will get applied to the weapons or vehicles that you use. The only useful purchase would be the clothing, as it can improve your camouflage and help you blend with the surroundings, but upon browsing the list of items you'll be disappointed to see that most of them are ridiculous outfits to make you look like a clown, a BDSM queen or a waifu, to name a few. Every once in a while there's a very low probability of winning an actually "tactical" attire in a loot box, but don't count on it. In the end, it's your ability as a player that will rule the final score.
Enough talking about the minor stuff. Let's dive into the meat of PUBG: the gameplay. There are a few modes, including practice, and you can play alone or in teams up to four people, plus you can choose who you'll be facing. So for example, you can go Rambo-style against 4-player teams, quite an exciting challenge (the greater the glory, you know). The premise is simple: everybody will board a plane that'll do a flyover across the map (ranging from 1x1 to 8x8km), and you'll choose when to jump and deploy your parachute. Once you land, the fun begins: arm and equip yourself as fast as you can with the best gear that luck has bestowed on you (safer, isolate areas are poor in that aspect), and begin killing without being killed. There's a "safe zone" that gets progressively smaller as a blue force field closes in, its damage increasing with every new phase. Finding a vehicle can be a necessity if you have landed far from the zone, but by the end of the match it'll be a desperate close quarters combat.
And that's it. Maybe it sounds simple, but the truth is that it can get your guts tingling when covering behind a wall, shots whizzing by and the damn blue suppression field blocking your only way out. The game has a simple "tactical" mindset: weapons are modeled after their real-life counterparts, and you can modify them by installing different types of scopes, handles, suppressors, laser sights... that modify their performance. Bullet trajectories drop over distance according to caliber. Ammo can get scarce and there's a limit to the amount of weight your guy (or gal) can carry. Wearing a helmet and vest will improve your chances of survival, so will carrying healing items. Vehicles need fuel to run. It's not Operation Flashpoint, but we can't complain. Could've been worse.
With time, you'll learn some gameplay traits like flares and supply drops (support packages that contain powerful equipment but also attract everyone in the vicinity), sand and ice storms that hamper visibility and movement, EMP discharges that fry your car's engine, plotting a path on the map with waypoints, grenades of many types, ziplines, a balloon that allows a helicopter to pick you up and carry you somewhere safe... To keep the players interested, new events and challenges are added every week, and items may be introduced or removed (I truly miss the self AED to revive my sorry ass).
After many years and patches, this Unreal Engine 4-based shooter seems to have reached a certain stability (it never crashed on my machine), and the configuration menu holds every setting you can think of. You can even choose the fire mode you want the weapons to have by default after picking them up, for every weapon category. The voice chat is integrated and works well. The graphics are nice and can be tuned if performance isn't great. You can use half of the keyboard if you want to exert total control over your character.
Things that should be improved? Well, maybe the first one is that the game seems to be designed so that stealth is not as effective as I'd like it to be. It sounds silly, but out in the field there aren't that many places to hide. Dense bushes are hard to come by. Even the "forests" feel too sparsely populated with trees, providing little cover. And like I mentioned before, unless you find a ghillie suit in a supply drop you won't exactly blend in with the terrain. This was probably a design choice to balance gameplay, but I dislike having my options artificially reduced. There's a low number of maps and after one month you'll feel that you've seen everything the game has to offer (I must also say that this is a recurring problem I have with other multiplayer games: after a while they all feel like Groundhog Day and I lose my motivation; perhaps this won't happen to you).
Perhaps a bigger issue is the low reliability of the game's servers and anti-cheat software. PUBG has made (and still does) a lot of money for Krafton, so much that it became free to play in 2022. With that revenue they could certainly spend some big bucks on making sure nobody ever got the exasperating "NETWORK LAG DETECTED" ever again. But we still do, and it's random. My best advice is to close the game once that happens and run it again, rejoining the match when prompted (removing the intro videos will speed up the loading). And what to say about the hackers? They can ruin your day and there's nothing you can do about it. If you get exterminated by somebody who can obviously see through walls and never misses, just breathe deep and relax. And speaking about not missing, sometimes the lag can get so bad that your shots don't register when they should, which may cost you a victory.
Let's summarize: do I recommend this game? If you haven't played a battle royale before and you're eager to, go ahead. In two weeks you should form a pretty based opinion. Like I said, it's fun and addictive when things work correctly. You'll never forget the rush of having chicken for dinner the first time. Make sure not to waste your time unlocking junk (or heaven forbid, paying for it) or trying to max out everything (this is not a RPG and a level 1 newbie can be as good as a level 200 pro, in theory). Just hit "READY" and face your destiny.
Playing
Steam, Epic Store or even your PS5 if you're not part of the PC Master Race. There's also a mobile version, but if you install that I'll deny ever knowing you.