PUBG: Blindspot is very different to the battle royale which lends it its name. A top-down, team-based tactical shooter, it borrows much from the likes of Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six Siege. Blindspot makes for an eclectic mix of ideas and inspirations, but its developers are confident that even after the millions of players and billions in revenue born of PUBG's industry-shaping success, its first major spin-off can live up to the name.
At first glance, the similarities between PUBG: Blindspot and the battle royale begin and end with the name. A tactical shooter based primarily around the 'bomb mission' format of games like Counter-Strike, the overall format is a substantial departure from PUBG itself. But look beyond the top-down perspective, says project director Seungmyeong Yang, and the connections between the two run deeper than you might expect.
Tac-tic-toe
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"PUBG: Battlegrounds provides a very unique feel of gunplay," he explains. Its attempt to capture factors like gun sway and recoil as part of a hyper-realistic approach to shooting is, he says, "the main differentiator of PUBG," and something that his team wanted to capture, despite the new perspective. During playtests, he claims that genre fans who have come over from the likes of Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six Siege "weren't expecting" that even with a top-down view, they'd be able to express their individual skills by mastering Blindspot's systems.
In a tactical shooter as in a battle royale, your ability to land a shot will only get you so far. Even the best marksman in the world won't emerge safely from a hot-drop every time, and the ability to effectively read the battlefield is crucial to both genres. Blindspot limits the player's perspective, but has an interesting approach to granting you as much information as possible to ensure your game isn't just ended by a bullet you couldn't have seen coming.
"We provide a clear cone of view which tells you where your character can actually see. But what's different for us is that we also provide the view of your teammates." It's a move that "spices up" the traditional close-quarters military experience Blindspot is offering, creating a game where information is as important as accuracy. It's a case of 'hunt-and-be-hunted', as you seek out enemy players to get an advantage over the enemy team, all while giving them as little intel as possible. It seems like an effective adaptation of the traditional vision cone into this new format, and one that allows Yang's team to capture another important part of the PUBG experience.
"If you watch Battlegrounds," he says, "it's not just military experts who are participating in a match." In fact, PUBG's closest thing to a main character, the helmet-wearing, frying pan-wielding 'lone survivor', is just a guy in a suit. And where an all-guns-blazing approach might work for some players, for others, playing slowly and quietly is their preferred method of acquiring a chicken dinner – something that Yang is hoping to capture in Blindspot too.
"For our game, it's not only about realistic gunplay, but also the fun of hiding behind cover. It's all about survival, which is one of the underlying themes of Battlegrounds." He outlines a battle royale scenario: "I hide behind a rock, I'm in the prone position, I try not to give the right angle to my enemies so they can hit me. If I tilt my head just a little bit wrong, then I might get shot dead instantly."
It's a balancing act central to slower-paced shooters like these, and that intensity is something Yang wants Blindspot to convey. "It's a top-down view, but I wanted to enable you to hide behind cover. We have the cone view, and by that you can intuitively tell where you can see and cannot see." You can kill the enemies in your field of vision, but that usually means they can kill you too, which runs counter to the idea that Yang says sits at the center of the entire PUBG experience: "Survival is the ever-more-prominent theme in our game, [...] and surviving is very difficult."
PUBG's theme of survival is important, but Yang says Krafton has drawn from a wide array of titles and genres to shape this spin-off. The tactical shooter juggernauts - Counter-Strike, Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege - are all cited, but so are far more casual top-down shooters like pixel-art SWAT game Door Kickers. Foxhole, a top-down military MMO that's just as much about logistics and planning as it is about actual fighting, is another surprising inspiration.
Nine years on from PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Blindspot might seem a strange addition to the franchise, but it's one that understands much about its namesake and the titles it's competing with. PUBG's shoes are so enormous that Blindspot can't really hope to fill them, but that makes its position an enviable one; helped along by a major name but standing outside its shadow, this could be a fascinating addition to a whole new genre, and a worthy extension of PUBG's legacy.
