If there's one thing to take away from the last few years in the games industry, it's that making multiplayer games is really difficult, and PUBG's IP franchise director, Taeseok Jang, says that he feels sad when other multiplayer games don't succeed.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ during an exclusive Krafton press tour, the PUBG boss says he has friends that worked on Concord and Highguard. Concord launched in August 2024 and lasted just two weeks before Sony pulled the plug, while Highguard managed to keep going for just over six weeks after its January 2026 launch.

However, Jang tries to see these failures as learning opportunities. "When you think about making new games, it's really hard to succeed every time," he says. "So, I try to put myself in their positions and try to think, 'oh, what could I have done better in that situation?' That's how I try to think more."

He adds: "I try to kind of think of my putting myself in their shoes, try to have that perspective, and try to learn from it."

Jang also specifically mentions thinking about community messaging, which feels especially relevant in Highguard's case after Wildlight Entertainment's odd decision to debut their shooter at the 2026 Game Awards before going silent almost right up until launch over a month later – an incredibly bold strategy for a debut game.

However, Jang is also no stranger to short-lived games. PUBG: Blindspot – a top-down tactical shooter – was shut down permanently at the end of March following a stint in early access that lasted just under two months.

With Krafton broadly making use of early access as a way to validate its game ideas, Jang says that Blindspot's development "reinforced how important it is to rapidly prototype in small teams and incorporate player feedback into the development process". He's not the only supporter, either, as InZoi's boss strongly recommends early access to other developers, too.

InZOI boss says the success of Crimson Desert and other Korean games is "really nice to see" but Asian developers "still have a lot to learn from Western developers."

Few multiplayer games have come close to success and longevity that PUBG: Battlegrounds has enjoyed. Milling through the crowds of PUBG's ninth anniversary fan event at Seoul University, excitement for the game in South Korea is palpable. Thousands of fans are treated to developer Q&As, a magic show from a well-known Korean illusionist, and even a performance from K-Pop band AllDay Project – a recent PUBG collaborator.

Despite being staggeringly popular in east Asia, PUBG – the battle royale that started it all – has fallen out of favor with Western players. Neither PUBG: Battlegrounds director Taehyun Kim nor PUBG IP franchise director Taeseok Jang, are afraid to admit it. But, speaking to GamesRadar+, the pair share ambitious plans to meet the new era of games-as-platforms head-on.

Platformer puzzle

Nine years after its viral launch, PUBG: Battlegrounds continues to draw in hundreds of thousands of players each day. It's an extremely impressive feat, but major hurdles lie ahead, including a diminished Western audience, drawing in the next generation of gamers, and an online entertainment landscape shaped by Fortnite, Roblox, and social media platforms. A behemoth like PUBG has little choice but to follow suit if it's to continue serving chicken dinners across the globe.

With that in mind, Krafton's goal is to turn PUBG into both a "content platform capable of delivering a wide range of gameplay and entertainment experiences" and a "long-lasting global cultural icon" as Jang puts it. Kim elaborates that this is effectively a two-pronged approach involving expanding the game with new modes from partner studios and user-generated content (UGC), while also leveraging collaborations to dig into that cultural aspect – he teases that a music collaboration with "a major Western artist" is on the horizon, for example.

Given that the success of Epic Games' battle royale pivot is almost entirely owed to PUBG's viral popularity, it's both ironic and hardly surprising that PUBG Studios is now looking to Epic for growth strategies. What is surprising is that, while Jang understands Fortnite is technically a competitor to PUBG, that's not how he views things.

"I don't really like that term [competitor], so I don't use it often," he says. "It doesn't matter if it's a game company or publisher, if they push a really strong experience to the audience, I have big respect for them, and I feel like we go on that journey together as a partner."

Despite being focused on the future, Kim also admits that PUBG Studios is a bit late to this 'platformization' trend. "We actually wanted to go with [platformization] earlier, but things have been delayed," he says. "But we're working hard to catch up."

Mira-marred

The starting gun for this catch-up effort is a PvE mode called Xeno Point – a co-op shooter that sees a team work their way through an alien-infested version of the Miramar map, with some rogue-lite mechanics thrown in for good measure. Looting gear ripped from PUBG's sandbox is how you'll slay and survive in Xeno Point, but you'll lose it all on death, save for permanently unlocked skills and Supers.

I got to play a preview of this mode while visiting PUBG Studios and, unfortunately, wasn't exactly thrilled by it. That might have been because I was given a souped-up account with almost all the Super abilities and Blue Chip Skills unlocked and upgraded, but I can't say the enemy or objective design helped either. Fighting waves of exploding spiders and aggressive humanoid aliens in a specific area while a progress bar filled didn't feel particularly fresh, with access to the best gear making objectives trivial, even on a tougher Tier 3 run.

My team then faced a bit of friction fighting the end-of-sector boss but were able to melt it in a hail of bullets once we understood the mechanics. This was much unlike the Tier 4 boss which comprised shooting glowing weak spots while avoiding area-of-effect attacks. The chances of getting revived if knocked down were next to nil thanks to the boss's near-constant barrages that made standing still for even a few seconds fatal, resulting in a sort of death spiral that eventually ended our run for good.

PUBG's core makes Xeno Point easy to pick up, and a good way to warm up or cool down between battle royale chicken dinner attempts. But Kim says that the hope for Xeno Point is for it to be "a natural entry point for players who are not previously familiar with PUBG." I agree that it's a low-stakes way to show a player the ropes of PUBG: Battlegrounds before diving into battle royale, but I don't see Xeno Point being exciting enough on its own to draw new players in.

Beyond Xeno Point, PUBG will be getting a Payday mode in May, made in collaboration with Swedish series developer Starbreeze Studios. I didn't get to preview this, but Kim offered that it's the "same [Payday] gameplay implemented into PUBG", revolving around high-tension heisting. Again, I'm sure PUBG's core can mix well here, but since it sounds like more of the same Payday action, I'm wondering why it exists outside of a bit of PUBG and Payday brand cross-pollination.

Looking further ahead, Krafton's platformization plans extend to the official release of the UGC hub in August, as well as plenty of improvements and new features to the core battle royale mode and console experience. With PC platforms more popular than PlayStation and Xbox in South Korea, meaningfully getting into the more console-oriented Western market seems like a crucial goal for the PUBG team. In the past, Kim admits, Krafton has been unable to capture "what Western users want".

But if you're after a return to the PUBG of old when it was a bit slower-paced, the team isn't looking back. "We don't want to revert it back to the early PUBG days. That's not the plan," says Kim. "But we don't think that's necessarily bad because we're still keeping the core gameplay elements."

Embattled Royale

As well as pressing on with the evolution of PUBG: Battlegrounds, PUBG Studios is working on a slate of separate games set within the same universe, with a shift towards rapid prototyping and validation using early access. We've already seen this in action with PUBG: Blindspot, which was released into early access and closed within two months.

It comes across as cutthroat to kill a game after such a short time, but Jang says Blindspot's development helped them see the value in experimentation and remaining agile. "It also reinforced how important it is to rapidly prototype in small teams and incorporate player feedback into the development process", he says.

With numerous PUBG projects on the horizon, including the extraction shooter spin-off PUBG: Black Budget, there also seems to be a risk of cannibalization, but Jang isn't worried. "Rather than competing with one another," he says, "we aim to share capabilities and experiences to create new gameplay experiences that players can enjoy."

This year will be pivotal for PUBG: Battlegrounds. The next six months will usher in huge expansions and changes for the game that I'm still uncertain of, based on what I've seen so far. Looking longer term, I also have to wonder if following in Fortnite's footsteps is even sustainable after recent layoff woes.

However, Kim remains optimistic and open-minded, saying that there are "many opportunities ahead". "There are a lot of ideas in the back of my head right now," he says. "This is the first time we are attempting UGC, so I think we're going to have to see how it goes."

A mysterious Steam user has over 13,000 pairs of PUBG pants worth just 3 cents in his inventory, and players can't figure out whether it's hoarding or money laundering

As the rise of generative AI continues to prove a popular talking point amid developers and gamers alike, PUBG creator Brendan Greene weighs in with his own thoughts – and it's safe to say he thinks the technology should at least not replace humans' roles in production.

Greene conveys as much during a recent interview with Eurogamer while answering whether or not his studio PlayerUnknown Productions employs the use of gen AI at all to help with its work on world-generating tech. "We don't use LLMs [large language models] so I'm not super worried [about backlash]," admits the dev. "LLMs have their uses, but there were chatbots in the 60s and 70s that achieved a lot of similar things."

He continues, explaining how his team's use of AI actually looks. "So I'm not super worried there. The systems we're building are to enable the artists to sculpt the worlds how they want," the PUBG mastermind describes. "It's like an orchestra: we can be either a violin player or we can be the conductor, where you know what everything does, and you just have some levers you can pull, and it creates worlds pretty quickly."

As for Greene's views on gen AI and the backlash it's been met with from gamers, the dev gets it. "I've been really heartened to see the community revolt against AI stuff. It's good to see that gamers go: 'No – if it's not built by artists, I don't want to see it.' So that's been really great to see." He reiterates that he's "not super worried" about PlayerUnknown Productions' use of AI, as "I think we're using it in the right way."

What is the right way? According to Greene, one "that enables you to create worlds quicker, rather than taking away the jobs of artists." It's certainly an interesting assertion – especially when considering Krafton, which published PUBG and remains an investor in Greene's studio still, just rebranded itself as an "AI first" company. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that PlayerUnknown Productions shares in Krafton's controversial new strategy.

"As a fully independent studio, our overall goals at PlayerUnknown Productions are not influenced by Krafton's chosen strategy," as Greene states. "While Krafton remains a minority stakeholder in our studio, their internal operations are separate from ours since 2021." I suppose it makes sense – and Greene isn't alone in voicing his feelings on AI in development as an industry figure, either.

Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu recently described how he's "never used AI and probably never will" himself, as it's not rewarding. Arc Raiders lead Patrick Söderlund also spoke on the matter, stating that games "can't be built by an AI" and "I hope they never can." Motoi Okamoto, Silent Hill series producer, detailed how new Konami title Silent Hill f contains "the kind of bold choices AI would never be able to make" as well.

It'll be interesting to see how Greene's words apply to PlayerUnknown Productions' upcoming projects, like survival game Prologue: Go Wayback. It's set to launch in just two days on November 20, so there's not long left to wait now.

Be sure to browse through our roundup of the most exciting new games coming this year and beyond for fresh titles to wishlist.

There's no shortage of combat pants in the color black in PUBG, it seems, but they all end up in the same place – one mysterious Steam user's inventory.

The unknown profile's impressive collection of combat pants was first noted on Reddit by a user hoping to figure out why somebody would hoard 13,092 pairs. "Came across a totally blank Steam profile with 13k of these $0.03 PUBG pants," writes the poster. "Anyone know what's going on here?" Attached to the thread is a screenshot of the Steam user's inventory – and it's truly a sight to behold if there ever was one.

Combat pants in black after combat pants in black, that's all the strange inventory shows – and what's more, they're not actually worth all that much on their own. One pair of the PUBG pants is just $0.03 on the Steam market currently, and while over 13,000 would net someone nearly $400 (not counting the cut that Valve would take), there's no telling why this person is holding on to so many right now.

Came across a totally blank Steam profile with 13k of these $0.03 PUBG pants. Anyone know what's going on here? from r/Steam

Commenters speculate that it could be anything from a money-making scheme to some sort of cash laundering business. "He will own them all and then he will sell them for millions," says one responder. Another questions whether it's an elaborate scam – and what kind, if it is: "Money laundering? Duping and scamming?" It's no surprise to see such theories, considering how viral games like this past summer's banana clicker have gone.

Some players create an entire economy around trading on the Steam markets, using it as a tried and true money-making endeavor. This rings especially true in countries where $0.03 can add up to something substantial quite quickly – not to mention how much certain games' communities, like that of Counter-Strike 2, rely on market sales. When it comes to the PUBG pants situation, it could truly be anything, but the replies cracking jokes about the Steam user's weird collection are my favorite.

"Artificial denim shortage," reads one such response. "He owns the digital Levi store," jests another commenter. There doesn't seem to be one correct answer regarding what the combat pants holder is using them for, however, and perhaps there won't ever be. According to the community market on Steam right now, though, pairs are still actively selling for $0.03 each – which means the mystery man hasn't managed to snag them all yet.

Check out some of the best PC games available right now.

PUBG creator Brendan Green's long-term goal is Project Artemis, an "Earth-scale" open-world sandbox. If you're a fan of No Man's Sky, that might sound a bit familiar. After all, its developer, Hello Games, is currently working on Light No Fire, an open-world sandbox game that's said to give players an area to explore that's "about the size of Earth."

Despite those similarities, however, Greene says that his project - which could still be as much as a decade away - differs from Hello Games' efforts thanks to the technology behind it. When I asked him how he felt about the follow-up to No Man's Sky, he explained that "Light No Fire's procedural." That's as opposed to the machine-learning technology that's shaping Project Artemis, but it also comes down to Greene's design philosophy.

"I don't know their tech stack," he explains, "so I'm not super familiar with the way they generate stuff, but I don't think it's the same goal at the end, which is providing an open-source holodeck. And that's the difference. I think most people are making games. I'm not making a game, I'm building a world."

That world will play host to "games and experiences within that world that take place in the world," but its the creators of those experiences that are important to Greene. "I don't want to make games for people, I want to make games with people." It's that kind of emergent, user-generated content that he says will shape his game - "if you give the player or the community the means to generate their own experiences, they'll go ham."

Of course, there's also the nature of the two games. Hello Games has already revealed the fantastical side of Light no Fire, while Greene and his team is aiming for a much more "realistic" game.

For now, the difference between the two projects is somewhat moot. Light No Fire currently has no release date, though it's likely to launch before Project Artemis. Greene says that could still be more than a decade away, and while Hello Games hasn't offered a launch window for its game, it does seem to be a bit further along than that.

"If we can do it… This will be something groundbreaking": PUBG creator Brendan Greene is five years into making a 10,000km "realistic Minecraft" – but there's still a decade to go.

PUBG creator Brendan Greene says he's making a huge open-world game for his new project for a pretty simple reason - it's the project he wants to make.

In an interview with Greene amid the unveiling of his nails-hard survival game, Prologue, I asked whether his personal success - PUBG has sold 75 million copies and made an estimated $13 billion - gives him the confidence to continue with his grand, decade-long plan to create a 10,000km open-world.

"A little bit," he says. "It gives me a little bit of confidence in the industry. But I get asked a lot 'why aren't you just doing PUBG 2, or and FPS game?' Well, because that's not what I want to do."

There's no denying that a direct follow-up to the fifth best-selling game of all time would probably have made some decent money. There's also no denying that Greene's pipe-dream, Project Artemis, is a risk given the tumultuous state of the industry, but that doesn't seem to worry him too much.

"For me, yeah it's a risk, but I'm...I used to say stubborn, but it's more 'single-minded'. This is the game I've wanted to make, and thankfully I do have some level of standing in the industry, so people are happy to back it." Greene also notes, however, his own good fortune in being able to simple make 'the game he wants to make', rather than being forced into a sequel or a similar project.

"I do have some level of standing in the industry, so people are happy to back [this project]. I'm in quite a privileged position compared to a lot of the game devs out there. It's been a really shitty time in the industry."

"If we can do it… This will be something groundbreaking": PUBG creator Brendan Greene is five years into making a 10,000km "realistic Minecraft" – but there's still a decade to go.

Brace yourself, battle royale fans - PUBG Battlegrounds' next patch, 22.2, is set to drop next week, and it brings an all-new care package weapon: the FAMAS.

Launching on March 14 on PC and March 23 on console, the patch also rebalances several weapons - most notably the AUG, M16AF, Mk47, Mutant, and P90 - and commemorates the game's sixth anniversary with themed billboards and other "decorative items". 

"We’re nudging some healthy balance updates to several of our well-known weapons this update," the team said. "We constantly strive to create a balanced and enjoyable gameplay experience and in order to achieve this goal we analyze months’ worth of player data, monitor community feedback, and conduct extensive testing."

You'll have an equal chance to load onto any of these five PUBG maps – Erangel, Miramar, Deston, Taego, and Paramo on normal mode – with Erangle, Miramar, and Taego rotating on ranked. Intense Battle Royale mode is making a comeback, too, that simplifies the standard mode to reduce playtime "by a bunch". 

As for the sixth anniversary? Well, the team is gearing up for a "much larger celebration" later this month, kicking off with an in-game collaboration with "celebrated toy designer and street art muralist Tristan Eaton", who "dreamed up a beautiful set of commemorative in-game billboards that you’ll want to watch for whenever a match takes you to Erangel, Miramar, or Sanhok". 

There will also be a "special anniversary message event" running until March 23 so players can submit questions and "wish the team a happy 6th anniversary". 100 of those players will be selected to receive "real-world 6th anniversary-themed items", including metal posters, postcards, and stickers. 

The previous patch - which rolled out on PC on January 17 and on console on January 25 - primarily focused on map changes, most of which aim to improve traversal across, and around, the battle royale's selection of maps.

Krafton recently announced its "begun active development" on a new project based upon the Korean fantasy novel, The Bird That Drinks Tears.

A novel series created and written by Yeong-do Lee, The Bird That Drinks Tears game will be "a whole new experience" based upon Lee's "elaborate worlds" and "complex characters".

PUBG may have helped popularize the battle royale, but it isn't the only game in the genre worth your time. Here are 10 games like PUBG to play if you need a new battle royale to conquer.

Does PUBG: Battlegrounds make the cut in our rundown of the very best shooter games?

PUBG Battlegrounds developer Krafton has unveiled what's new in PUBG: Battlegrounds' upcoming 21.2 update.

The patch - which rolls out on PC on January 17 and on console on January 25 - focuses primarily on map changes, most of which aim to improve traversal across, and around, the battle royale's selection of maps.

Sanhok has had a gentle reworking, with sand added around some rock outcrops in the sea and the water area around Ruins has been "made deeper for players to swim across". A bunch of new bridges have also been added to make it easier to escape the storm, too. You'll also find that ascender attachments now appear in your starting items, and new ascender attachments have been added to Cave and rock mountains to help you get around.

But it's Vikendi that's had the most tweaking, with Multidrops "set to arrive" alongside repair kits, which enable you to fix your vehicle, helmet, or armor, depending upon which one you find. There are also Secret Rooms to find across Vikendi too, where "players who obtain a Security Key and open the rooms will be rewarded with various high-tier items". Oh, and did we mention the weather?

"Mother Nature is back wreaking havoc upon Vikendi once again," Krafton teases. "With the 21.2 Update, players may find themselves face-to-face with the Blizzard Zone. Once players enter the Blizzard Zone they will find themselves moving slower, receiving consistent damage per second, hindered sight and sound, and vehicles will be harder to maneuver."

Krafton recently announced its "begun active development" on a new project based upon the Korean fantasy novel, The Bird That Drinks Tears.

A novel series created and written by Yeong-do Lee, The Bird That Drinks Tears game will be "a whole new experience" based upon Lee's "elaborate worlds" and "complex characters".

"This ambitious project aims to bring the original fantasy universe of The Bird That Drinks Tears to life through its unique and refreshing fantasy races, beautiful, haunting landscapes, and gripping, immersive, and poignant stories," Krafton explains on the game's newly-launched website.

PUBG may have helped popularize the battle royale, but it isn't the only game in the genre worth your time. Here are 10 games like PUBG to play if you need a new battle royale to conquer.

Does PUBG: Battlegrounds make the cut in our rundown of the very best shooter games?

PUBG Mobile – the widely popular miniature version of the original battle royale game – has introduced a new anti-cheating tech that it says has halved the number of cheaters playing the mobile shooter.

Called Fog of War, the new system – which developer Krafton says is "the first of its kind in mobile gaming" – works by limiting the "game information a player receives" when using x-ray vision or wall hacks.

Whilst it's only been implemented in a "limited capacity" up until now, Krafton says that lobbies using the anti-cheat system saw x-ray vision cheats decrease by "over 50 per cent", and up to 62 per cent "in key regions".

"The first of its kind in mobile gaming, Fog of War is an advanced anti-cheat system that limits the game information a player receives, reducing their ability to see players out of their field of view or through walls and objects," Krafton said in a statement. 

"Firstly, the Fog of War system scans all the buildings and terrain on PUBG Mobile’s huge maps. Through internal calculations, the system then intelligently determines what the player is supposed to be able to see. Finally, only that specific information is sent from the server back to the player. Non-visible information will not be sent, putting a stop to x-ray vision cheaters."

From here on in, Krafton says it will be gradually rolling out the system across all PUBG Mobile modes.

"Cheating is completely unacceptable in PUBG Mobile, and this is yet another step towards stopping players from using deceitful and unfair technology," the company insisted. 

"Nothing is more important to PUBG Mobile than ensuring players have a safe, fun and fair experience."

As for PUBG Mobile's grown-up sibling, PUBG: Battlegrounds? Since going free-to-play, PUBG: Battlegrounds - the official name for the game some of us used to know as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds - has amassed over 80,000 new daily players. Krafton believes it's switching to the free-to-play model back in January that has helped the battle royale shooter clock up more players, as well as the "stricter anti-cheat programs" that aim "to ensure a fairer playing field for all".

The latest patch for PUBG: Battlegrounds includes a new vehicle, weather system, all-new animations, and a crossover collaboration with British supercar manufacturer McLaren Automotive, although Krafton has already confirmed that the "skins do not affect the performance of the vehicle[s], and its original specs remain changed", so sadly there's no way players can zip speedily to a chicken dinner courtesy of a souped-up sports car. Sorry.

Krafton also recently announced that it has "begun active development" on a new project based upon the Korean fantasy novel, The Bird That Drinks Tears.

Update 19.2 is now live in PUBG: Battlegrounds.

The latest patch for PUBG: Battlegrounds - the official name for the game some of us used to know as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds - includes a new vehicle, weather system, all-new animations, and a crossover collaboration with British supercar manufacturer McLaren Automotive.

Running now until the beginning of November (November 1 for PC and November 9 for console players), the limited-time crossover gives players "the opportunity to obtain a McLaren GT Standard - Onyx Black vehicle skin, costume, gear, emote and more" via in-game McLaren Loot Caches, as well as a new vehicle workshop and a McLaren container car in the starting points to keep you busy until the match starts.

Developer Krafton has already confirmed that the "skins do not affect the performance of the vehicle[s], and its original specs remain changed", so sadly there's no way players can zip speedily to a chicken dinner courtesy of a souped-up sports car. 

As for the other changes?

"Players jumping into Deston can experience the new time-of-day weather feature that will deliver a more realistic lighting/weather state over the course of a single match," Krafton explains. "The feature will not support a full day-to-night cycle and only a short progression cycle will be shown with no drastic change to the sun angle. 

"The animation refresh update, originally detailed in a dev letter, is live for Update 19.2! The goal for the update is to enhance player experience by improving and refining the game’s animation presentation, while retaining existing timing and strategy."

Finally, play on Deston and you'll notice that a delicious new vehicle is now available. You and your teammates will be able to race the Not-So-Friendly Neighborhood Food Truck across the map, using the food truck's serving hatch to serve up a "buffet of bullets" to anyone who gets in your way.

Since going free-to-play, PUBG: Battlegrounds has amassed over 80,000 new daily players.

Krafton believes it's switching to the free-to-play model back in January that has helped the battle royale shooter clock up more players, as well as the "stricter anti-cheat programs" that aim "to ensure a fairer playing field for all".

Did you know that The Callisto Protocol was ultimately separated from the PUBG universe because the team at developer Striking Distance felt the connection had become "disingenuous"? Talking to GamesRadar+, Glen Schofield opened up about the game's surprising relationship with PUBG during a recent interview, which explored how The Callisto Protocol evolved when it felt "too much like Dead Space". 

PUBG: Battlegrounds may be free-to-play but it hasn't gotten any easier to play for newcomers.

Since going free-to-play, PUBG: Battlegrounds - the official name for the game some of us used to know as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds - has amassed over 80,000 new daily players.

PUBG Battlegrounds developer Krafton confirmed the news in its latest financial report, stating that the PUBG IP - which includes its mobile iteration, New State Mobile, which has "continued to evolve" and has also increased total play time and play frequency - has "helped drive Krafton's global growth as it looks towards the release of the Callisto Protocol and Unknown Worlds' new IP later in 2022".

Krafton believes it's switching to the free-to-play model back in January that has helped the battle royale shooter clock up more players, as well as the "stricter anti-cheat programs" that aim "to ensure a fairer playing field for all".

"PUBG: Battleground, which is available on PC and consoles, recently celebrated its fifth anniversary," Krafton said in a press statement. "The game, which transitioned to a free-to-play business model in January 2022, has seen a steady inflow of more than 80,000 new users per day.

"Accordingly, average revenue per user (ARPU) across all platforms increased more than 20 per cent [quarter on quarter]. International markets (outside South Korea) drove 94 per cent of the game’s revenue during Q2 2022."

Krafton recently revealed it's teaming up with Ubisoft for a new Assassin's Creed-themed crossover in PUBG Battlegrounds later this month.

Did you know that The Callisto Protocol was ultimately separated from the PUBG universe because the team at developer Striking Distance felt the connection had become "disingenuous"? Talking to GamesRadar+, Glen Schofield opened up about the game's surprising relationship with PUBG during a recent interview, which explored how The Callisto Protocol evolved when it felt "too much like Dead Space". 

Krafton also recently announced that it has "begun active development" on a new project based upon the Korean fantasy novel, The Bird That Drinks Tears.

"This ambitious project aims to bring the original fantasy universe of The Bird That Drinks Tears to life through its unique and refreshing fantasy races, beautiful, haunting landscapes, and gripping, immersive, and poignant stories," Krafton explains on the game's newly-launched website. 

PUBG: Battlegrounds may be free-to-play but it hasn't gotten any easier to play for newcomers.

PUGB Battlegrounds developer Krafton has revealed it's teaming up with Ubisoft for a new Assassin's Creed-themed crossover next month.

Deemed "a multi-game collaboration that will bring the world of Assassin’s Creed to both PUBG: Battlegrounds and New State Mobile this August" - which means the content is coming to both the PC/console version and the mobile iteration - players "will have the chance to acquire Assassin’s Creed-themed in-game items, see Abstergo Industries introduced to the world of PUBG: Battlegrounds, and participate in a series of exclusive events to earn Assassin’s Creed-themed crate tickets".

The PUBG: Battlegrounds event will kick off with Assassin's Creed-themed cosmetics, events, and "world elements" on August 17 and run until September 22. The event on New State Mobile runs at a slightly different time - August 18 until September 21 - and offers "over 30 unique Assassin's Creed-themed costumes, such as Ezio's Outfit and Shay's Outfit, weapon skins, and collaboration crates", as well as limited-time events. Log-in rewards will also be available during this time.

The PUBG Battleground event will similarly offer themed cosmetics including costumes, bag skins, parachute skin, emote, gun charm, and two sets of spray items. You'll also get to visit Abstergo Industries on the Haven map, where you'll find themed resources, Leap of Faith ledges, and even "a hidden Animus machine".

PUGB Battlegrounds recently unveiled its first new map since the battle royale went free-to-play at the beginning of the year: Deston.

"The wait is over. Our ninth new map we’ve been teasing about all this time is finally here this update," developer Krafton said in a blog update at the time. "Welcome to the 8x8km near-future and ravaged world: DESTON!

"Deston (formerly known as Codename: Kiki) presents you diverse biomes – a flooded downtown embracing one of the tallest skyscrapers you’ve ever seen in PUBG: Battlegrounds, a murky swamp, clear coasts, beautiful mountains, and unexplored islands."

Did you know that The Callisto Protocol was ultimately separated from the PUBG universe because the team at developer Striking Distance felt the connection had become "disingenuous"?

Talking to GamesRadar+, Glen Schofield opened up about the game's surprising relationship with PUBG during a recent interview, which explored how The Callisto Protocol evolved when it felt "too much like Dead Space". 

PUBG: Battlegrounds may be free-to-play but it hasn't gotten any easier to play for newcomers.

PUGB Battlegrounds is ready to unveil its first new map since the battle royale went free-to-play at the beginning of the year: Deston.

"The wait is over. Our ninth new map we’ve been teasing about all this time is finally here this update," developer Krafton said in a blog update. "Welcome to the 8x8km near-future and ravaged world: DESTON!

"Deston (formerly known as Codename: Kiki) presents you diverse biomes – a flooded downtown embracing one of the tallest skyscrapers you’ve ever seen in PUBG: Battlegrounds, a murky swamp, clear coasts, beautiful mountains, and unexplored islands."

Deston - which hopes to "diversify gameplay" - will also include a raft of new items and features, including a new Airboat vehicle and the Ascender, which enables players to quickly ascend, be it to surprise an unsuspecting team or retreat from an attacking one.

Deston will roll out as part of the 18.2 Update on July 13 for PC, and July 21 for console players. As well as brand new locations, there'll also be an exclusive new weapon for Deston visitors, too. The 12-gauge slug shotgun the O12 has "superior accuracy and range compared to any other shotgun to make it more efficient in mid-to-short range encounters".

Did you know that The Callisto Protocol was ultimately separated from the PUBG universe because the team at developer Striking Distance felt the connection had become "disingenuous"?

Talking to GamesRadar+, Glen Schofield opened up about the game's surprising relationship with PUBG during a recent interview, which explored how The Callisto Protocol evolved when it felt "too much like Dead Space". Schofield maintained that the PUBG tie-in was never forced on The Callisto Protocol, and that the team simply started to drift away from the idea as the game developed.

"Coming into it, when I started in 2019, PUBG was still on the heels of being this giant, giant thing," Schofield explained. "And they're working on a story, this timeline, and they're like, you think your game could fit on the timeline? And I'm like, it'd be kind of cool. Maybe I need the PUBG thing? I don't know. And it wasn't because I didn't think that we had a good enough reputation. Maybe worldwide that would help springboard it. But the truth is, as we're making it, we're going farther away. Marketing or PR, whatever that gave us, it felt better just to be on its own. We didn't talk about sales, we just talked about what felt right." 

One of the PUBG community's most prominent sources of news, datamines, and insider information recently revealed that developer Krafton was reportedly trying to shut them down.

PUBG: Battlegrounds may be free-to-play but it hasn't gotten any easier to play for newcomers.

PUBG developer Krafton is reportedly trying to shut down one of its community's most prominent sources of news, datamines, and insider information.  

Well-known dataminer PlayerIGN claims on Twitter that the developer sent a private investigator to their house to communicate several demands. Krafton reportedly wants the tipster to hand over all direct messages with anyone who gave them information, provide a full account of how much they’ve earned, and delete all social media posts containing leaks – likely those related to its intellectual property. 

PlayerIGN goes on to explain that datamines of upcoming skins come from a separate website that gets updated each night before a patch goes on the PUBG test server. All they do is save the images and share them to their followers on Twitter and Discord. As for the leaks, the tipster says that they don’t “actively” seek out Krafton’s people or systems for information, rather it’s “mostly vice versa”. They are also seeking out legal advice before making their next move.

We’ve reached out to both Krafton and PlayerIGN for more information, and will update this story if we hear back. 

PlayerIGN has proven to be a popular and reliable hub of information for PUBG fans over the years. They’ve datamined plenty of information on upcoming features and collaborations, like a Nier crossover event earlier this year that resulted in several new skins. 

PlayerIGN has also pulled back the curtain on PUBG’s development. Last year, the leaker told The Loadout that PUBG was getting new features from an abandoned sequel. It was reportedly called Project RE:BORN, though development issues eventually left the project entirely adrift.

“My source tells me PUBG Project RE:BORN was originally meant to be the PUBG 2 game we were expecting,” they said at the time. “But the development team bumped into issues and are opting to go with an engine update/overhaul to the current game instead – a bit like Overwatch 2.”

Why Krafton has allegedly decided to go after PlayerIGN now of all times is unclear, though it’s certainly proving unpopular in the community. Some do sympathise that leaks can be a bummer for devs when they prove to be true, though the broad consensus is that what has reportedly happened is several steps too far.

PUBG: Battlegrounds may be free-to-play but it hasn't gotten any easier to play for newcomers.

It's quiet. Too quiet. PUBG: Battlegrounds is so quiet it feels like it will drive me mad. It's my first match, and the only sound emanating through my headset is the slap of my character's bare feet as I run across a patchy grass field. As a somewhat seasoned battle royale player, spending hours each week in both Warzone and Apex Legends (with a brief foray into Fortnite, thanks to that Ariana Grande concert), PUBG is a whole other beast. 

PUBG went free-to-play earlier this year, and while creative director Dave Curd claims it wasn't in response to the success of Warzone or Apex Legends, it's impossible to not consider the other battle royales in this conversation. PUBG may have kickstarted the battle royale trend back in 2017, but since its launch, it has also become one of the most inaccessible, thanks to its price tag and more unforgiving gameplay style. And even though it's now free-to-play, its grounded gameplay and slow pace still make this a tough BR nut to crack.

Getting started 

You can't get into PUBG matches without going through a tutorial, and I get stuck within the first few minutes. During the section where I'm required to shoot targets while aiming down sight, I nail several shots in a row but the counter frustratingly remains at zero. Turns out the ADS feature I'm used to in battle royales (holding down the left trigger to bring the gun up to your face), isn't ADS in PUBG, and you've gotta tap the trigger to go in and out of it. Laughing to myself at how long it took to realize this, I finish the rest of the tutorial with ease and jump into AI training sessions where I'm placed alone in a battle royale match filled with bots.

It's here that PUBG's silence starts to unnerve me. Baffled as to why my character is dropped into a battlefield barefoot, I immediately begin running across the map to get to the safe zone. PUBG doesn't give you a safe zone until after you've dropped, and I manage to land in an area without any vehicles, so the slap slap slap of my feet is the only sound I hear for nearly ten minutes. As the circle begins to close in on me, I make it to the banks of a river where a motorboat is waiting offshore and take it out into the open water, desperately trying to outrun the ring. Unlike in Apex or Warzone, there's no background music in PUBG, which only makes me even more jumpy and anxious. 

The circle overtakes me, but it's only the first ring, so I'm confident I can outrun it in my motorboat. I've yet to see a single bot, and the only whisper of activity I've heard is the random bombardments that go off in different areas of the map in an attempt to flush out campers. Just as I'm nearing the safe zone and psyching myself up to run into enemies, my boat runs out of gas. I die in my first match while treading water, a victim of the zone closure. I never saw anyone else or fired my weapon.

Getting better 

My second training match goes better, and I get all the kills and achievements I need to drop into a proper PUBG match. I join three other players who, after dropping in,  immediately spread out to separate sections of the map. In other battle royales, this is usually considered bad form, as it promotes independent gameplay styles rather than relying on teamwork, but here it seems to be the norm. 

I loot a house I've landed near but am quickly attacked by three enemies, who I make surprisingly swift work of with an M416, considering the gunplay is much heavier than I'm used to. PUBG is all about measured trigger pulls, holding your "breath" by pressing L1 while ADS, and focusing on headshots. It's a lot to juggle for a new player, so I'm shocked I manage to take out enemies so quickly. I heal up and make my way towards another building, where I'm ambushed by an enemy camping behind a car. I take them out, too, and loot their body so I can actually wear shoes. Riding high on my success, I make my way toward one of my teammates.

"Think that was the last of the bots," one of them says over the mic, and my heart drops as I realize I had just killed a handful of AI enemies. PUBG humbles me faster than any other battle royale I've ever played, as I die shortly after this moment to a burst of fire shot from an enemy I never lay eyes on. A few hours of gameplay later and I'm still painfully slow with the mechanics, constantly messing up my ADS and throwing grenades too close to my feet. There's clearly a stiff learning curve in PUBG...

There are those who (understandably) believe PUBG is one of the least complicated battle royales to get into – after all, it's born from realistic military shooters, starting first as an ARMA 2 mod, then a DayZ mod. It laid the foundation for all the major battle royales that have come since, and it doesn't have the extra features that require a deep understanding of the game's mechanics. There's no cast of characters with different ability sets you have to learn, no killstreak rewards to figure out, and no construction skills to master - there are just weapons and armor on the ground and a closing circle to contend with.

But PUBG's gunplay is difficult to get the hang of, even as a seasoned shooter player. The ADS mechanics feel clunky and slow, and the lack of discernible hit markers makes it hard to know if I'm even making my shots. As someone who cut their teeth in games that came out after PUBG and were molded by it, I'm having a hard time breaking into these battlegrounds. But with so many battle royales to choose from, I can easily return to Apex and Warzone to get my fix, having now learned that I need some extra features on the side of my BR. PUBG may not be for me, but it could be exactly what you're looking for.

The best battle royale games to prove you're number one

PUBG Mobile is crossing over with smash-hit anime/manga Jujutsu Kaisen.

As of earlier today on February 15, the Jujutsu Kaisen crossover event is live in PUBG Mobile, and will be hanging around for exactly one month until March 15. Protagonist Yuji Itadori, along with Megumi Fushiguro, Nobara Kugisaki and teacher Satoru Gojo will all be available as in-game characters via special Cosplay Sets, which players can collect.

To partake in the actual event, you need to play the Ranked Theme Mode on any map. From there, you'll find Cursed Object Crates which contain Sealed Sakuna Fingers, and if you can manage to bag all the new items in a single map, you'll earn yourself a special reward. You can also check the in-game Circle system for clues as to the fingers whereabouts.

Cursed Corpse Grenades are a brand new item available in Ranked Theme Mode while the Jujutsu Kaisen collaboration rumbles on. When used, this item will summon a Boss Cursed Corpse, which players can then attempt to defeat for some special in-game loot items, no doubt plenty of which will gear you up for a better chance of winning a match.

Finally, you'll be able to accumulate Exploration Progress through playing the special Jujutsu Kaisen Mode or Classic Mode in PUBG Mobile. It's through collecting this special Exploration Progress that players will be able to earn the new Cosplay Sets for outfits, special emotes, and other rewards which are themed around Jujutsu Kaisen. The new collaboration event is free for all to partake in, and PUBG Mobile is completely free to play on Apple or Android devices.

Check out our full PUBG Mobile tips guide for essential info if you're delving into the battle royale game for the first time.

Not sure how PUBG emotes work? The controls and key bindings for PUBG are pretty complicated and it doesn’t help that the ones for using emotes and the emote wheel aren’t particularly clear. You might want to use an emote to taunt an enemy, communicate with your teammates, or celebrate a chicken dinner, so it’s pretty handy to know how to make use of them. Here’s how you can use PUBG emotes during a battle royale match, and which emotes all players can use.

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How PUBG emotes work

If you express yourself through the power of emotes in PUBG, you need to hold both bumpers on your controller at the same time to bring up the emote wheel – that’s LB and RB on an Xbox controller and L1 and R1 on a PlayStation controller. PC players will need to press the key directly under the Esc key to bring up the emote wheel – this key varies between keyboard layouts with UK layouts using [`] and US layouts using [~].

With the emote wheel on-screen, you can then use your controller’s right stick or PC mouse to select an emote. There are two pages to the emote wheel, so you can choose from eight on one page and another eight on the second page. Use left and right on the D-Pad of your controller to switch pages on the emote wheel. Each emote on the wheel is numbered too, so PC players can also select an emote by pressing the corresponding number key. 

All PUBG players have access to 21 default emotes, although only 16 can be equipped to the emote wheel at once, so you can customize your wheel slots a bit to get a good selection. These emotes are:

• Celebrate
• Thanks
• Surrender
• Hello
• Affirmative
• You’re done
• Rage
• Laugh
• Clap
• Provoke
• Negative
• Go
• Come here
• Shrug
• Jealous
• Kick
• Cry
• Cower
• Stop!
• Impatient
• Thumbs up

How to change your emotes in PUBG

To change your emotes, head to the ‘Customize’ menu on the main lobby screen and then go across to the ‘Emotes & Sprays’ tab. You’ll be able to see a grid of all the emotes you own, as well as your current emote wheel configuration. To change an emote, select the one you want to add to the wheel and then choose a slot on your emote wheel. This will replace whatever is in that slot already. If you really wanted, you could slot the same emote multiple times.

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Have the PUBG FPP and TPP terms got you a bit stumped? We’ve got everything you need to know about these camera views and how they tie into the battlegrounds of PlayerUnknown. You might have seen them in some of the control scheme menus or have read other players talking about them and which is better. Here’s what you need to know about the FPP and TPP camera modes in PUBG.

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What PUBG FPP and TPP mean

While a lot of games have a single camera mode, PUBG has both first and third-person that you can switch between on the fly – this is done by pressing RB or R1 on an Xbox or PlayStation controller, or by pressing the V key. Both camera modes have their advantages and disadvantages, so it’s down to personal preference. Third-person mode give players a wide, clear view of their surroundings, aiding with awareness and allowing players to peak around objects without revealing their position. First-person mode lacks the wide view and peaking abilities but trades it for better aiming with guns, allowing for greater accuracy.

Which is better for PUBG out of FPP and TPP?

While a lot of games have a single camera mode, PUBG has both first and third-person that you can switch between on the fly – this is done by pressing RB or R1 on an Xbox or PlayStation controller, or by pressing the key directly under the Esc key. Both camera modes have their advantages and disadvantages, so it’s down to personal preference. Third-person mode give players a wide, clear view of their surroundings, aiding with awareness and allowing players to peak around objects without revealing their position. First-person mode lacks the wide view and peaking abilities but trades it for better aiming with guns, allowing for greater accuracy.

By default, PUBG is in third-person, and given the massive maps, varying levels of cover, and slower pace of matches, sticking with this camera mode and utilizing peaking tricks will really help you get the drop on your enemies. However, if you've looked at how to aim in PUBG on consoles you'll know the PUBG ADS mechanic, also allows players to momentarily switch to a first-person perspective while aiming their weapon to get a proper view down the sights. This really helps with accurate shooting as you can see exactly where your shots are going and considerably tightens up the bullet spread.

We think keeping the default hybrid setup is definitely the best option in PUBG. TPP will help you survey the battlegrounds a lot easier thanks to the wide view, and FPP will help you lay down some accurate fire, particularly at range. In close-quarters scenarios, you could use the basic aim – which just slightly focuses the bullet spread of your weapon – instead of ADS to spray bullets somewhat accurately without having to fiddle around switching to first-person. Or just beat your opponent with a frying pan.

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If you need a PUBG tutorial skip to get past the training we’ve got all the information you need to get through all the drills and exercises as quickly as possible. Since PUBG recently went free-to-play, a compulsory tutorial has been implemented for all players to complete as they jump back into the battlegrounds. This unfortunately also applies to veteran players who will have lots of experience with PUBG already, so you’ll want to get through the tutorials quickly if you’re one of them. Here’s how to get through the Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds training tutorial.

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Can you skip the PUBG tutorial?

At the moment, there is no way of skipping the PUBG tutorial and AI Training that have been recently introduced as part of the free-to-play update. All players must complete the PUBG tutorial before getting back into the main game against real players, but you can make this part easier with these tips to get through it all quickly.

The first thing you need to do is the Basic Training exercise, which teaches you the bare minimum you need to play PUBG and even get a chicken dinner. This includes learning how to move, pick up items, fire and aim your weapon using PUBG ADS, equip weapon attachments, use grenades, and heal up. Follow the objectives listed on your screen and complete them quickly to get through each area of Basic Training. If you’re familiar with PUBG, this should only take you a few minutes.

The next step – and arguably the most annoying – is to either play 10 AI matches or complete four AI Training Drills, whichever you complete first. AI Training matches are just like regular PUBG battle royale solo matches except you’ll fight against bots instead of real players. It seems like the quickest way through this stage is to try and complete the four AI Training Drills in as few matches as you can. You can see the PUBG Training Drills and your progress by opening the full information on each training mode when you’re making your selection. Here are the four Training Drills that you need to complete in AI Training matches:

• Win a chicken dinner by winning a match
• Get 5 kills in total
• Loot 1 item from a Care Package
• Drive vehicles a total distance of 2,000m

If you’re an experienced PUBG player, you should be able to handle the bots and get a win reasonably easily, and getting the five kills should come as a part of that. As for the Care Package loot, look and listen for the cargo plane flying overhead and look out for any packages it drops that you can loot. Finally, try and get any vehicle and drive it everywhere you can. You don’t have to drive the full 2,000m in a single vehicle and in one match, so this one might take you a few matches as you try to find vehicles and avoid getting blown up.

While it is entirely possible to complete these PUBG Training Drills in a couple of matches, you could also just load into 10 different matches and get yourself killed early on. You can’t just blow yourself up with an overcooked grenade or get killed by a bot right off the bat, however. You need to spend a bit of time looting and at least acting like you’re playing the game for it count. After a few minutes, or when a good chunk of the bots have died, you’re safe to get yourself killed and you should see the number of matches needed to pass the tutorial in the lobby screen has gone down.

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PUBG cross platform play enables crossplay between PlayStation and Xbox, if you want to widen your playing options and take the battle royale across formats. Whether that's to play with friends on different consoles, or just to fill out your lobbies faster, PUBG cross platform play will give you more options once you know how to enable the option, squad up with a few buddies, and share your PUBG chicken dinner between friends on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and One. 

How to enable PUBG cross platform play

To turn on PUBG cross platform play you'll need to go into the settings menu, find the gameplay tab and enable it there. When PUBG crossplay is enabled all console players can play together - in the same team, or as opponents in matchmaking. That includes custom matches too. You can party up, search for friends, invite them and so on. Basically, once cross platform play is on, the game treats all consoles like they're the same. You'll still be able to tell who's who though, thanks to some platform symbols next to names to denote PlayStation and Xbox. 

In order to help you find and organise people you can head to the Social tab, accessed by pressing View/Square depending on what pad you're holding. Here you can search for friends, and invite them from Xbox and PlayStation. 

You can also use the Team Finder here to link up with people before a match starts so you can play together and not get squadded up with randoms. You can also toggle the option on or off so people know if you're looking or not. 

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Where is PUBG PC Cross platform play?

There just isn't any, sorry. PUBG PC cross platform play has never been an option and is unlikely to be anytime soon. The reason has nothing to do with the differences between controllers and keyboard and mouse play, but simply because the PC and console versions of the game exists on different servers. They might as well be on different planets as far as networking goes. While it's not impossible that, one day, they might be combined or linked, it's highly unlikely for the time being. So if you're on PC or console but what to cross over the only option is to look at new hardware. 

Discovering how to ADS in PUBG and aim down the sights isn't as immediate obvious as you might think. Mainly because aim doesn't live on the left trigger like God ordained. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has an unique control system that will leave more than a few people curiously prodding various parts of the controller to work out where basic functions live. PUBG ADS and aiming is one of those things. However, coming up below we'll cover how to aim, and switch between modes so you stand more of a chance in a fight. 

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How to ADS in PUBG

Unlike most games, PUBG gives you two options when aiming - a close up view for third person shooting, and a scoped, precision view down the barrel. 

Here's how they work: 

• Third person aim - hold the left trigger down.
• First person scoped - tap the left trigger. Tap again to release. 

Here's a breakdown of the basic, default controls: 

As well as scoping, things like the ability to change the grenade throwing motion from a lob to underarm, is handy in small spaces, as is the ability to free look, and using left on the D-pad to change firing modes. (Quick tip: burst fire and full auto for short to medium range encounters, never for range. Switch to single shot.)

In terms of other controls, the set up changes depending on what you're doing. These are the functions while actually aiming: 

Aaaand driving: 

The 'Change Seat' options probably the most important there for when you get in the wrong side of a car (and you will). 

There's also a bunch of map specific controls, important given how important getting to the right place can be. 

Inventory navigation is also crucial given how little time you want to spend in there when people might be shooting at you. Key thing here is getting the shoulder button side-to-side navigation locked in your muscle memory.

And, finally, there are swimming controls which are probably the most conventional in the whole game. The ability to 'Dive' is your friend here as it's useful to avoid attention and dodge gunfire. 

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The PUBG Miramar map was the first map to be added to PlayUnknown's Battlegrounds, an arid desert map that can prove pretty tough on those who don't know its nuances and tricky elements. Long sight-lines and lack of cover make it a tricky arena for newcomers, but we're here to explain how you can survive its harsh terrain. Read on for everything you need to know about the PUBG Miramar map and the best places to drop. 

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All PUBG Miramar map locations

As mentioned, a lot of the PUBG Miramar map is empty space, or at least open terrain where it's dangerous to navigate safely. For that reason, it's easier to pick the specific areas where you can hunker down, towns or industrial areas, rather than waddling about in the open like a duck at the fair. Check out the key areas and locations below.

El Pozo 

El Pozo can be a risky play, especially if it is within close distance to the plane’s path, but it can easily set you up for an amazing game. It’s the second largest city on the map and, as you would expect, houses a lot of loot.  

The boxing ring is a place many like to drop, so unless you fancy your chances early game the better bet is to try and land further into the city and loot you way through some of the larger buildings. Then pick off the survivors from the boxing ring. Be weary of everyone that drops with you though, because it is relatively easy to move around El Pozo while staying in cover and remaining unseen. 

There are more than enough vehicle spawns here to almost guarantee you one if needed, and while its location isn’t the most central, it’s quite rare that the circle will push you to leave early, unlike some of the locations on the very outskirts of the map. 

Water Treatment 

Water Treatment may look like a terrible place to land, but it actually has a very high amount of good quality loot, and is in a great location to end up near the first circle, if not in it. However, now more people know how great Water Treatment can be, so it’s also quite a popular drop. 

On a good day this can kit out a full squad of four, but you will have to take down whoever lands with you with the limited loot you land on. There really isn’t that much solid cover in Water Treatment, and even the areas that you can hide behind allow for easy flanks. Combine that with a lot of the loot locations leaving you very exposed and you're often stuck with what you land on until you take out the competition. 

The main two buildings are solid shouts, but the real loot can be found around the pipes in the middle. You will be exposed, but with tons of individual loot spawns in that area it should be easy to drop onto a solid weapon. 

Los Leones 

Arguably the most enticing location on the map, Los Leones is the biggest city in all of PUBG by quite a long way, and with it comes a lot of looting options - you should never leave Los Leones without two fully kitted out weapons of your choice. This of course brings a lot of players to the area, but the sheer size of Los Leones offers up a lot of cover and space to loot in, which means if you play smart you can avoid early-game fights all together. 

If you don’t fancy heading right into the city, there is a line of warehouse buildings going North to South on the entire West side of the city. Land here and make your way through all the big buildings and you should come out with solid loot, in a short amount of time and with little resistance. 

Vehicles are also not a concern with more spawns than you could ever make use of, and there is a ton of ways to get out of the city if one road is locked down. In fact the only major downside, outside of the popularity, is that some of the buildings, or building sites, offer little loot and take ages to explore. Stick to the completed buildings and you should be fine. 

Hacienda del Patrón

If you are new to Miramar there really seems like no good reason to drop on Hacienda del Patrón. It’s a tiny location, with little in the way of buildings and it’s right next to the much bigger town of San Martin. But drop there once and you'll understand that the loot available here is unlike any other on the map. 

Head towards the villa towards the North of Hacienda and you will be greeted with more loot than any one person can carry. It'll easily kit out a squad of four, nine times out of 10, and chances are you'll walk out with at least a couple of silenced weapons and as many level two helmets and vests and you could need. 

This kind of loot of course brings with it a lot of foes, who you will have to defeat to walk out with the riches Hacienda has to offer, and vehicles are not guaranteed. But it is very central, and often in the first circle, so you’ll have time to win some fights and loot everything there is. 

Pecado

If you want to die, or get a lot of practise in early game fights then go to Pecado. This tiny town is located right in the middle of the map, meaning it is reachable from almost every plane path, and has basically become Miramar’s version of School. You drop here, grab a gun and go fight straight away. 

The boxing ring and casino are the two major attractions, and offer solid loot, but that really doesn’t matter 90% of the time, because Pecado is always a case of grab what you can when you land and make the best of it. The other buildings on the West side can be solid options if you want to survive, but that really isn’t buying into the fun of Pecado. 

If, by some miracle, yo do make it out of Pecado alive and with solid loot, which you will have because you'll be able to loot about 10 different bodies once the dust settles, you should be in a good spot. But be warned that even for the best players escaping Pecado is a rare occurrence. 

Valle del Mar 

Valle del Mar is a risky play, not because of the amount of people that go there, which is usually low, or because of questionable loot, which is quite high, but because of its location. Sitting on the South coast it’s the most almost as far West as you can go. There are a few vehicle spawns, especially around the bridge, but sometimes you might not get a vehicles and that is basically game over. 

If you get a plane path that allows it then Valle del Mar can be a good shout. It has solid loot, is rarely a busy location and sits on the water, meaning you can make rotations via the waves if you want to. But you have to be ready to move early if the circle is not kind. 

While it’s much less of a viable strategy than on Erangle, you an bridge camp here to get a few easy kills. It of course depends on the plane route, but with southern planes you can certainly rack up a couple of kills this way. 

Chumacera

Chumacera is a weird one. On the map it looks pretty sizable but in reality only offers up enough loot for one squad at the most. However, this means that its rare multiple people drop here, unless it’s close to the plane, so it can be a safe drop for those not looking to fight. If it’s not directly under the plane, then this can easily be a game winning drop. 

Loot is average at best, but if you are alone you should come out with a decent load out, especially if you mop up all the smaller buildings on the outskirts. While it is tempting to go for the high ground that has a couple of big sheds, the loot up there is actually limited, so starting on the lower side of town is usually the better option. 

There’s a few vehicle spawns and a load of smaller compounds in the surrounding area, so even if the town itself is disappointing, you have a lot of other options, which makes this quite the versatile drop. 

This cave just south of Los Leones 

This is one for solo games only, or maybe at a push duos, but there is no way a squad is coming out of here with enough loot to sustain them. However, when playing alone this is a great drop. Not that many people either know about it, or value it enough to go there, which means most of the time you have this entire cave system just south of Los Leones to yourself and it usually has some pretty good loot. 

It can take a while to get your bearings when in there, and for the first few times you will miss some of the loot spawns, but after a few visits you will know where to look. Hint: there's more than a few loot spawns just on the floor. This is probably the most underrated drop on the list, and really should be used more.

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PUBG will become free-to-play on all platforms from January 12, 2022. That decision reflects how the world has shifted around the trailblazing first-person shooter – the game that transformed the battle royale from DayZ mod to global phenomenon. It's been almost five years since PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds entered early access and there's been no shortage of rivals since. Something had to change if PUBG was to stay competitive. 

"We came to the decision to make PUBG: Battlegrounds free-to-play because we feel that it is truly the right time," says creative director Dave Curd. "I know there are a lot of people who are interested in PUBG: Battleground but have never gotten around to playing it for various reasons – now is the perfect moment to get started."

PUBG goes F2P

Because PUBG has been a premium title since its launch in 2017, it's perhaps easy to overlook how content-rich it has become, particularly against other battle royales. When Curd assures me that PUBG "is the best it has ever been", he's pointing to its eight unique maps and deep weapon mechanics as evidence. The former ensures PUBG can continue to support a diverse range of play-styles, and the latter is a skill-ceiling that rewards patience and purposeful shot placement. 

Putting PUBG's legacy aside, it's difficult to argue with the assertion that Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Fortnite have now become synonymous with the battle royale genre. These free-to-play games are the bedrock of multiplayer shooters in the modern era, boasting constantly shifting metas and updating storefronts to keep their massive player-bases active and engaged. 

From the outside looking in, it's easy to imagine that the decision to strip PUBG of its $30 price tag is a response to the success EA, Activision, and Epic Games has seen in this space, though PUBG Corp is quick to push back against that calculation. "This is in no way a response to the other titles you've mentioned. They're all great games which specialise in their own unique strengths, just as we do. We develop our game independently of others and are excited to see what is to come," says Curd.

PUBG Corp sees the decision to go free-to-play with PUBG: Battlegrounds as more than an opportunity to "open it up for as many people as possible." The studio sees this as a chance to introduce new featuresets, make renewed commitments to the community, and grow the franchise even further before games set in the wider PUBG universe – such as The Callisto Protocol – launch later this year. 

"It has absolutely opened up opportunities," Curd adds. "We can invite more people to the party and that means we'll see developments that we may not have witnessed with the previous pay-to-play model. In terms of developing and evolving, we will continue to do what we've always done: innovate, create new experiences, and grow the PUBG universe."

Growing the community

When major alterations are made to established games, it's natural for entrenched communities to fear change. Curd is quick to affirm that "despite the transition, the core game is still the core game", adding that PUBG Corp sees this as an "opportunity to continue to evolve" the central Battlegrounds experience. The creative director points to the addition of new gameplay features, and the introduction of Tactical Gear, action queuing, and a revamped tutorial system as examples of what this evolution will look like in the short term.

Curd says that going free-to-play "is going to grow our community, which is always a positive thing. We are ready to welcome new players with open arms and help them hit the ground running. We've developed amazing tutorials for newbies and will have a brand new shooting gallery, which I think is going to be a big hit."

A natural community concern is the stability of servers, and whether they will withstand the influx of new players. Curd says "the health of our servers won't be impacted" by the switch into free-to-play, adding, "as ever, we will be monitoring and updating them regularly when we need to." Given that PUBG: Battlegrounds has sold more than 75 million copies across PC and console to date, making it one of the best-selling games of all time, you have to hope that it'll be able to withstand the pressure. 

It's worth remembering that PUBG Corp has tested extensively for this inevitably. In August 2021, PUBG: Battlegrounds had a week of free play; it was rumored at the time that this was a test run for a permanent free-to-play offering, which we now know was the case. "We saw a lot of success and an influx of new players when we held 'Free Play Week' last year, and we tapped into their experiences to help inform the direction we’d ultimately take when transitioning to a free to play model. While a lot of the new updates have been cooking for some time," says Curd, pointing to tactical gear and action queuing, which have long been in development. "The sentiment and feedback we saw during the 'Free Play Week' only bolstered our decision to make a permanent transition to free-to-play."

There are still questions surrounding Zakynthos, PUBG Corp's proprietary anti-cheat solution. The studio recently explained that, during the August Free Play Week, the "ratio of suspected cheaters spiked after the event started, but eventually recovered and settled in line with the numbers we had before the event." That's a promising sign. Cheaters remain a blight on the free-to-play games market, and one of PUBG's biggest challenges won't be satiating a new player base, but ensuring that the scales remain balanced. "The battle with cheaters continues as PUBG: Battlegrounds enters the free-to-play world," the anti-cheat team continues, "but we are dedicated and doing all we can to ensure that you not only hear about, but feel the effects of our anti-cheat solutions for yourselves." 

A new beginning

PUBG: Battlegrounds is now free-to-play on all platforms, perhaps its most significant change since the battle royale entered Steam Early Access back in March 2017. As a thank you to all survivors who braved Erangel, and the maps that launched since, PUBG Corp has designed a commemorative pack as a thank you. It contains a handful of unique cosmetics and free access to Battlegrounds Plus.  

"We think it is only fair to give a little extra to fans who have purchased PUBG: Battlegrounds before we transitioned to free-to-play. All those who have already bought our game receive a Commemorative Pack which includes a free Battlegrounds Plus upgrade where they can enjoy ranked mode, create custom matches, and collect in-game skins and G-Coin – as well as other benefits," says Curd, noting that new players will need to pay $12.99 to get access to Battlegrounds Plus. 

I'm keen to see how PUBG: Battlegrounds weathers an influx of new players. As competitive as Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Fortnite can be, they are far more forgiving than PUBG. The battle royale leans further into realism than its competition, forcing tactical thinking and careful movement, should you want to be the last player standing. With its tense shootouts, heavier gunplay, and varied maps, PUBG still offers a nice contrast with what we're seeing elsewhere in the genre. And, as Curd says, this is just the beginning. "This is the natural next step and a great way to introduce more players to our universe."

GamesRadar+ is diving deep into biggest games of the year in January with exclusive interviews, hands-on impressions, and in-depth editorials. To check out all of our coverage so far, be sure to follow Big in 2022. 

The tropical PUBG Sanhok map is a luscious, verdant land, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' jungle biome that provides a smaller, meaner experience than most of the other maps. There's all manner of unique areas to explore and get shot at in Sanhok, as well as a special Loot Truck mechanic to act as the map's special wild card element.

That's where we come in to help - we've laid out all the most important and best Sanhok locations, as well as what you need to know about each area. Here's a clear and simple guide to the PUBG Sanhok map locations and where to drop.

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PUBG Sanhok map locations 

As mentioned, the PUBG Sanhok map is a bit smaller than the others, leading to a more combat-heavy experience where it's more likely you'll encounter other players on a regular basis. With that in mind, it's very important to know where you are and what to expect, so we've laid out all the key locations for you below.

Loot Trucks

While exploring the remastered version of Sanhok, you're likely to spot the new Loot Trucks. These four-wheeled behemoths are hard to miss, which is handy really because shooting them means they drop loot. 

Destroying them will allow you to hoover up a huge pile of loot, including named weapon variants that offer preset attachments and bonuses to things like handling or magazine capacity. It's worth remembering, though, that firing on these vehicles is a risk; while they can't return fire, gunfire will give away your position to nearby players.

There are four trucks at the start of the map, but up to eight can spawn per match as they're destroyed. Oh, and don't expect to steal one - these vehicles are unmanned, and getting in the way of one could be deadly.

Paradise Resort 

Paradise resort is one of the few named areas towards the center of the map and offers some solid loot for anyone that goes there. It’s actually a pretty large area, so can handle multiple people dropping, but the open courtyards you have to cross mean at some point you are probably going to be in a fight. Even if you think it's far enough away from the plane path that no one will go there, there’s always a very high chance of someone joining you. 

As well as being a popular location, there is also a lack of vehicle spawns. Now that’s not often a massive issue because walking anywhere in Sanhok is pretty easy early on, but is something to keep in mind. However, neither of these issues should be enough to turn you away - the loot here is great and if you survive you’ll be in a solid position. 

Boot Camp 

Boot Camp should really be the equivalent of School or Pecado on Sanhok. Its right in the middle of the map and has really high loot spawn rates, but the key difference here is that the size and layout of Boot Camp mean multiple people can co-exist in the area for quite a while. 

There will be a lot of fights, but its not quite on the level where only one person will survive. Multiple people can find their way out of Boot Camp and usually with some great gear. It has perhaps the best loot on the entirety of Sanhok and more than enough to kit out multiple people. Just be sure to check everywhere for dead player boxes, because they will often have done a lot of the looting for you. 

Quarry

If you want a more relaxed time then head to the massive quarry, which is also fairly central. No one drops here because the loot is limited and you are exposed from pretty much every angle. But as no one drops anywhere near here you are usually guaranteed an easy first few minutes. 

The loot is the issue, but if you are alone then you can usually come out with a couple of solid weapons and enough equipment to see you through. Most of the boxes and crates have a potential loot spawn on top of them, so be sure to climb up on top of the high ground areas to locate the best weapons. 

The big downside here is that anyone passing by will be able to spot you and you will have limited cover and be on the low ground. So this really is a place to drop, grab enough look to get by and then leave and try to hunt kills. 

Camp Bravo 

Like most of the other camps on Sanhok, Camp Bravo offers some great loot, but its location on the edge of the map can make it a pain if the circle is not kind. If you are confident in your rotations then this is a solid drop, and there are three potential vehicle spawns in very close proximity to the camp to help out in that regard. 

If you are challenged by other players on the drop then you want to stay clear of the middle buildings. There’s a ton of open windows here which means you can easily be shot in the back when you least expect it. Stick to the edge if others are with you and try to catch them off guard. 

Ha Thin 

Ha Thin is a surprisingly large area to loot, and its layout means you can quickly move through it and move on with a decent arsenal in your backpack. It’s viability really depends on the plane path, anything too southern and this is probably a bad call, but if you can reach it easily it is a great drop. 

It’s northern position might make it seem like a strange location to drop, but there is a load of vehicle spawns here, for both land and sea, so getting to the first circle will never be an issue. In our minds this is really a top tier drop, sure the loot might not be as reliable as say Boot Camp, but you'd have to be super unlucky to not come out with at least an AR and some acceptable backup. 

Sah Mee

Sanhok is certainly lacking in proper urban areas, but Sah Mee is probably the closest you will get. This of course brings a lot of loot, but with it being all in two story houses its not the easiest place to loot efficiently. You’ll also have to be careful when moving from building to building, because it is pretty easy to sneak past someone unnoticed. 

The main reasons to drop here is the loot available and the cover the area provides. You will most likely be joined by another player or two, even if it is a good distance away from the plane, but providing you play smart and don’t just run aimlessly from building to building you can all get some decent loot before the fights inevitably start. 

Camp Alpha

Camp Alpha is very similar to Camp Bravo, but its position on the smaller northern island makes it slightly less favorable in our opinion. Often having to cross the river is difficult and chances are high you will have to cross at some point if you drop here. 

However, the loot is very good, and if you can hold down the camp it can almost become an impenetrable fortress, as you should be able to spot anyone coming in from quite a way off if you play on the roofs. It’s a solid option, but the others on this list are arguably better in some way. This is a popular drop in a difficult location but does have solid loot. Try and it and see how you feel. 

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Finding the best PUBG guns will make PlayerUnknown's Battleground much more survivable, as gunfights will often be claimed by those with powerhouse weapons over those using simple pistols.  

While any weapon is enough to grab a kill in PUBG, getting that chicken dinner will require you to learn the intricacies of all the best PUBG guns - which scopes are best, which ammo each one takes, and more. From room-clearing shotguns, to sniper rifles that can shoot the wings off a fly from hundreds of meters away, there's a lot to learn - and we've got you covered. 

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MG3 LMG

This LMG is an absolute powerhouse, particularly against enemy vehicles but has plenty of utility against troops, too. You'll only find it in a supply crate, but it's worth the risk. 

Capable of both 990 and 660 RPM that can be toggled between, as well as a bipod for added stability when playing defensively, it's the ideal "holdout" weapon. The magazine has 75 rounds, but with the opportunity to use an up to 6x scope, you'll have the ability to pick your shots.

Without the bipod, the gun does have a tendency to recoil, but if you can position yourself behind cover, you can mow down half of the entrants in a match if you get the positioning right.

Decoy Grenade

A new addition, decoy grenades are a new type of throwable that imitate gunfire sounds to draw enemies in or cover your own exit. These last for a pretty sizeable ten seconds.

It's only available in Sanhok, but it's ideal for getting an enemy to look the other way so you can make a break for cover. You can even "cook" the grenade, so you can decide how quickly it goes off.

Assault Rifles 

M416

When it is fully kitted out with attachments there is little that will beat a M4 in most situations. It is capable of solid damage, and has some of the easiest to control recoil for those who like to spray. It’s not amazing at range, but it is certainly better than a lot of options, and is one of the best all round weapons available. If you have the attachments a M4 should be top of your wish list. 

AKM

The AKM has the highest single shot damage of all the common assault rifles, and is great for anyone who is confident of hitting headshots. Just two shots to the face will be enough to take down anyone who isn’t rocking a level three helmet, so with single fire mode and a decent scope you will be popping heads all day long. Running the AKM as a single shot backup AR or as a pseudo sniper is a good idea. Relying on it to spray at medium range is not. 

M16A4

Some will tell you that the M16 is the best sniper rifle in the game with an 8x scope, despite being an AR. For a time that was probably closer to the truth than reality, but with the 1.0 update and the Xbox One launch version the M16 was hit pretty hard. It can no longer hold an 8x, and some of the stats were changed. That being said it is still very good, especially if you have a quick trigger finger. It’s burst mode is something it either love or hate, but no one can deny how strong it is in single shot mode. 

SCAR-L

The SCAR is one gun that is very divisive, but there is no arguing that in close to medium range it is great at spraying down foes. As a single fire weapon it perhaps isn’t on the same level as the M16 or AKM, but if you like to auto fire this is a good option for you if a M4 isn’t anywhere to be seen. In the current meta of running double AR it is always a good choice to take one over many other weapons. 

SMGs 

Vector

In terms of raw damage up close the Vector is a machine, but running it without an extended mag is a really bad idea. The 13 bullets will run out in a second and you will be left stranded if you didn’t hit a good chunk of them. With an extended mag and a few other attachments this becomes perhaps the best close range weapon out there, so always keep an eye out for one. Of course, if the blue circle is clearly going to an open area, short range is not your friend. 

UMP9

The UMP is perhaps the best all round SMG - it’s solid close up, but unlike most other SMG’s it can do damage at medium range as well. The big advantage is that it runs on 9mm ammo, which is so common you would struggle to have less than 100 in every game. This is always a great option for a secondary weapon and can even be paired up with a sniper. 

Shotguns

S12K

If you are playing in an urban area then the S12K is your best friend. Despite being a shotgun it has a rapid rate of fire that is ridiculously good, and the damage output will make anyone stupid enough to come within 15 yards of you fall to the ground instantly. If you can get an extended mag then you can easily run this in duos and squads, although it is obviously poor in open areas. 

S686

In solo games the double barrelled S686 can be quite the weapon. If you hit both shots at close range then your opponents stand no chance, but if you come across a couple of people together you will lose that fight. You have to be confident when using this, as one missed shot will spell disaster. The S12K is usually a safer option. 

Pistols

P18C

The truth is that outside of the opening minute you are not going to want to use a pistol at all. Once you have anything better than the pistol becomes all but forgotten. That is unless you find a P18C. The only autofire pistol in PUBG can pack quite the punch, and with an extended mag can be really quite useful for clearing out buildings. You still shouldn't use it that often, but if you spot one it is always worth picking up. 

Sniper Rifles

Kar98k

As far as raw damage goes, the Kar98k is by far the best common sniper rifle, but the bolt action nature means that hitting more than one shot in a row requires a lot of time and adjustment. That being said, if you can hit headshots then you will one shot anyone with a level one or two helmet, so it is very valuable. With a good scope the Kar98k becomes incredibly lethal and one of the best weapons in the game. 

Mini 14

In terms of an all round weapon the Mini 14 is undoubtedly the best sniper. It can take on the role of long distance damage with a good scope, and it can also be used up close if needed, thanks to a rapid fire rates (if you have a good trigger finger). The damage isn’t amazing but you should easily be able to hit a couple of shots in a row. The Mini is truly a tier one weapon and one you should always look to take if you don't already have a Kar98k or a sniper from an air drop.  

SKS

The SKS sits in between the Mini and the Kar98k in most areas. The fire rate isn’t amazing, and neither is the damage, but the former is better than the Kar and the latter is better than the Mini. The SKS is always a solid choice if neither of the other top level snipers are available, but sometimes it may be better to run double AR than pick this up, it really depends on how you want to play. Take the SKS if you have a good scope and want to sit back, take an AR if you want to be more aggressive and play at closer range. 

Air Drop Weapons

AWM

All of the air drop weapons are amazing choices and things you should 100% run if you get the chance, but there is no doubt that the AWM is by far the best, and easily the best gun in the game. The AWM will one shot everyone if you hit them in the head, even if they are rocking a level three helmet. Even if someone has a level two vest it will only take two hits to bring them down. There really is no reason not to use the AWM if you find one, it really does feel a little overpowered. Although best of luck hitting shots if you don’t have any kind of optic to put on it, that iron sight is horrific. 

M249

The M249 is not what you would call subtle. With a 100 round clip of 5.56 ammo it can tear through any opponents and will blow up a vehicle in a matter of seconds. Spray and pray is really the name of the game here, and providing you have some level of accuracy it becomes laughably easy to pick up kills at close and medium range. Of course you need to keep an eye on ammo levels, but even with just 100 ammo (which you should find with it) it is worth running, mostly because it is great fun to fire.

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The right PUBG tips and tricks will ensure that you last long beyond the initial skirmishes when playing PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Despite a simple concept, the execution isn't easy - and execution really is the word, when a sniper bullet can separate the hemispheres of your brain at any instant. 

You'll need to understand the particulars of this particular battle royale - drop in, grab the best loot, and learn how to use it to survive both other players and the ever-encroaching wall of energy. Guns, strategies, map knowledge, important items and what hats pair nicely with what vests - it'll all help give you the edge in the next firefight. Whatever you're looking for, we've got some PUBG tips below to get you shooting, looting, and eating a chicken dinner in no time.

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1. Don’t be afraid to hide out in the blue early on

If you want to stay alive then taking damage might not seem like the best idea, but in the early game it can be worth it. If you hide out on the edge of the blue circle you will take small amounts of damage, but no one will expect you to be out there. With some good healing options you can stay there for quite a long time and avoid fights entirely. You may even be able to pick up a few kills on unsuspecting foes. But you always keep an eye on your health and the next circle. 

2. Terrain can be just as good cover as any building or wall

Buildings are usually pretty good for staying alive, especially if you can cover the only entrance, but they carry a lot of risks. A well placed grenade will end your run instantly and, if someone knows you are in there, they can just wait by the exit. If you are looking for a good place to hold up for a while, try and find a ridge, dip, or hill so your opponents won’t be able to hit you. This will provide solid cover with better sightlines than a building and, crucially, a lot more escape options. 

3. ALWAYS take a level three helmet...

If you want to win you are going to need a good helmet and vest, so when looting untouched equipment always grab the highest level possible. But if after a fight you find a damaged level three on the person you took down it can be difficult to know what to pick up and what to leave. The general rule here is actually pretty simple. Always take a level three helmet, even if it is close to being destroyed. A level three will always save you from a headshot with the M24, and is the only one that will do so. Therefore it is nearly always worth it. 

4. ...but sometimes leave a level three vest

Vests are a little different to helmets in terms of usefulness, but as always an undamaged level three will always be better than a level two. In the late game, if you plan to take a lot of fights then better durability is more important than high level. So a full health level two is better than a quarter health level three, as it will last longer. If it’s down to the last few people, though, then the damaged level three should be the better option, as blocking more damage from one shot could be the difference between a win and a loss.

5. Play the edge of the circle

Once you start to hit the late game, different strategies start to come into play. The one that should keep you alive is to play on the edge of the circle and to run in with it. Staying on the edge means that the area you need to be aware of shrinks a lot. You know that a big portion of what's behind you is totally safe, so you only need to be aware of what is in front of you. If you're in the middle then you have to keep eyes everywhere, which is not an easy task. 

6. Keep yourself boosted up late game

Even if you are at full health, once it gets down to the last 15 or so people it is a good idea to start popping those energy drinks and painkillers to get you boosted up and regenerating health. There’s a few reasons for this, such as not having to worry about it after a late game fight, as well as the potential that one tick of health recovery could win you a close battle. Either way, if you have them available you should get the boosts going early as there's no point saving them. Who wants painkillers with a chicken dinner?

7. Hiding in bushes works surprisingly well

This sounds crazy, but bushes actually provide a really good stealth option. Sit in a bush and there is a strong chance someone will walk straight past and then wonder where on earth they got shot from. Bushes provide no hard cover, but if no one sees you then no one will shoot you, and if no one shoots you then you won't die. Although perhaps take off any bright coloured clothes you have on before trying it.

8. Grass is not visible after a while so don’t hide in it

With the right scopes and sightlines, you can see for hundreds of meters in PUBG, but crucially grass stops being visible at around the 200m mark. This means that if someone decides to lay down, they may think they are well covered, but anyone more than 200 meters away can see them clearly. You are always much better trying to find hard cover like a tree or wall (or even getting in a bush) than trying to lay down in the grass until the late stages. This also means that hitting the deck in a field when shots come in is a terrible idea. Just run to cover instantly. 

9. Pick. Your. Battles 

Everyone wants to be the person that racks up 20 kills and walks out the victor, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim. (Unless you're Shroud or Dr Disrespect, two of the biggest PUBG streamers who somehow manage to get more kills in one round than most do in an evening.) So in order to stay alive you should pick your battles. That’s not to say you shouldn’t take any fights, but only pick battles you know you can win. If you spot someone holding an AWM and full level three armour, maybe don’t take them on in clear sight. But see someone with just a shotgun while you have a 4x AR and you should totally take them out. Take an extra second to evaluate each combat situation and if it looks tough, maybe run the other way. 

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The icy PUBG Vikendi map is one of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' most striking locales, with crisp white tundra as far as the eye can see. This map is one of the more diverse in terms of what you can actually find, with rocket launch pads, trains and more, but there's also a lot of little details that won't immediately by apparent to those players for whom this is all very fresh-fallen snow. 

It's also got plenty of elevation, but what really sets it apart is the addition of a tramline that runs through the map's center and around the outside, offering tactical options and considerations that you won't find in any of the game's other maps. 

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Best PUBG Vikendi map locations

Below we've listed all the key locations and elements you can expect to find in Vikendi - and there's quite a few, each one with their own nuances and special qualities. Of course, as everybody knows at this point, named locations also tend to be hotspot player choices - you're much more likely to run into other people at unique areas than in random farmhouses in nondescript locations.

Vikendi Train Lines

Vikendi's chilly hills are a little easier to cross now, thanks to train lines that run through and around the map. There are eleven different stations that players can embark and disembark from, scattered around the map. While one train line skirts around Vikendi's borders, making it ideal for early-game relocation, you'll want to be cautious of leaving the play area as a match progresses.

Two internal train lines have multiple trains, and can be ideal for drive-by kills on enemies, as well as ambushes at stations. The trains themselves can become battlegrounds in their own right, with some carriages offering more cover than others. The train lines are visible on your in-game map, so be sure to stick close to them if you're expecting to relocate quickly.

Goroka

First up in the best places to drop in Vikendi is Goroka. This is one of four major towns on the map, but Goroka stands out due to the verticality. You’re going to want to land at one of the buildings on the northern side next to the main road running through, because you’ll have the vertical advantage over any other players landing at the buildings below.

In terms of loot, it’s the same as with any big city; go through a few buildings and you’ll likely have enough gear to last you until the end of the game, with assault rifles and attachments littering the floor. It’s also fairly central, so you should have safe refuge for the first few safe zones before you have to make your way out of the city. Just try not to get caught crossing the enormous frozen lake!

Winery

One of the southernmost locations, the Winery can be found right next to Pilnec. You need to be careful because players will often loot up at Pilnec then come searching for kills at the Winery, but as long as you pay attention to the sounds around you, you’ll be able to hear footsteps from some distance away.

As for loot, the main selling point about the Winery are the wine cellars found underneath some of the top-level sheds. These will often have a lot of solid loot, though players can be found camping down there so be on your guard. Pre-aim corners as you move around and you shouldn’t run into too many problems, as long as you take your time and don’t run willy-nilly across the open areas.

Cosmodrome

One of the most iconic locations on the map, the Cosmodrome is as you’d expect; an old abandoned spaceport. Around the rocket launch site has some very wide open areas, but if you stick to some of the single storey buildings away from the rocket site, you’ll find that almost all of them have underground areas with plenty of loot.

You’re going to want to treat the Cosmodrome in a similar way to the Winery; treat each corner as if someone is waiting around it, and proceed cautiously. You can get a serious amount of loot here, but the surrounding areas can be a pain to run through when the blue is advancing so make sure you leave with plenty of time to spare.

Castle

This one isn’t advised if your goal is to camp until the end of the game, but Castle is absolutely the best drop if you want to engage with other players and practice your skills in combat scenarios. It’s the most popular place on the map and also the coolest - it’s even got a river that doubles as a moat!

If you manage to land at Castle and grab a decent weapon from the start, you want to be checking every single corner. The layout means there’s plenty of corners for other players to be sat behind, but if you are one of the few survivors here and you have a gun with a long range scope, head up to the highest walkway for a solid lookout spot. Like the Cosmodrome though, you’re going to want to vamoose with plenty of time to spare because there’s nothing worse than swimming across the moat with the blue chomping at your heels.

Lumber Yard

If you’re playing solos, landing at the Lumber Yard is a good option for some isolation. There’s not a lot to say about this place; it has a few large open sheds with loot littering the floor, and you won’t find many other people landing here with you. If you don’t have enough stuff from the main Lumber Yard, there are multiple clusters of buildings all around, so you should have no problem getting over to them in peace.

Our only word of warning is if you have a very western safe zone. The closest path into the circle will be across one of the only bridges that leads to the Castle, so there’s a good chance you’ll be a sitting duck as you either run across the bridge or swim through the water. Keep an eye on the timer and as always, move early if you think you could get held at a choke point.

Cantra

In the south-east corner of the map, you’ll find the small town of Cantra. It’s a quaint village, but in our experience, it tends to have some of the best loot compared to the other smaller towns like Vihar or Krichas. We’d recommend landing at the church in the corner first, then after that, check out some of the smaller buildings.

Once you’re done in the main town, the Hot Springs are also right around the corner if you have time before the blue catches you. Keep an eye on the incoming zone though, because you’re so far away from the centre of the map, you’ll have some light jogging to do.

Villa

Another good location for solos and duos, the Villa is self-explanatory. There’s a big building - the villa - and a few smaller sheds around the courtyard. You’ll find numerous weapons and attachments in the main building, and there’s also a Dacia spawn point in one of the garages.

The main selling point for the Villa is how centrally located it is. You’ll almost always be safe for at least the first two zones, then when you eventually do have to move, there are a lot of buildings and house clusters to dart between if someone has already nicked the car.

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Getting the best PUBG starting gear should be your first priority upon parachuting down to the ground in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. With empty pockets and no clear direction when you hit land, you'll need an understanding of what items you should and which ones you don't want taking space in your backpack.

That's where we come in. We've laid out all the best items and gear for players to prioritise, sorting the treasure from the trash and making sure you've got what you need. Ammo, throwable items, healing gear, attachments and all the rest - here's the best PUBG starting gear for you to find.

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Best PUBG starting gear and items

Below we've listed all the items in ascending order of value - effectively going from worst to best - so you know how important what you've found actually is. Keep in mind it's always going to be a little contextual (ammo types and attachments need to fit the guns you've got), but here's a general approach, especially if you haven't found any guns and armor you're committed to yet.

Speaking of which, it's helpful to keep in mind that we haven't listed firearms and protective gear on this page, as they're big enough to warrant their own proper guides. For those, check out our PUBG armor and best PUBG gun pages for all the details.

Tier 4 - Just leave it where it is

This is the lowest of the low, items you would question picking up even if you had a level three backpack. When space is tight in the early game you can totally ignore these and forget you ever saw them. 

Pistol and Crossbow Attachments
Pistol attachments are so common that even if you did want one there is a very high chance you will find them somewhere down the line. Although, let's face it, you should never be in a situation where you have a pistol attachment in your backpack, it’s either on your pistol or you leave it on the ground.

Bandage
Perhaps a controversial choice, and certainly something you should pick up once you have more space, but in the early game you can skip these most of the time. The heal they give is pretty negligible and in the early game you probably won't need to heal all that much anyway. Once you have a backpack and some space, carrying 10-20 is a solid idea. 

Molotovs, Smoke Grenades and Flash Grenades
Out of all the items in this category there is some wiggle room here if you tend to use any of these a lot. But, for most of us, these are fairly situational items and therefore can be avoided. Having a smoke or two for the late game is a nice idea, but they are so common you can load up later, and having them in the early game is not going to help much. 

Gas Can
You can just straight up ignore these most of the time. Very rarely will you be in a situation where you need one, and even when you do they aren’t difficult to find. Worst case scenario you have to find a new vehicle, which again isn't that difficult. This might be the most useless early game item out there. 

Quickdraw mags
A quickdraw mag offers a small advantage, but really they are pretty useless, with extended, and extended quickdraws, being the only ones you should care about. Throughout the whole game the case here should be put it directly on your weapon or ignore it. 

Tier 3 - Take if you think you’ll need it

These items are certainly ones you should consider picking up in the early game, but only if they fit into your plans. If you don’t see it being useful then leave it right on the floor. 

12 Gauge, 9mm and .45mm ammo
Having ammo is always nice, but these are the ammo types you should be using the least. If you are rocking a shotgun then you probably won't need more than 20 rounds in an average game, so keep this on the ground until you need it. For SMGs you might need a little more, but 9mm and .45mm is so common that taking it when you don’t have a weapon that needs it is a terrible idea. 

Shotgun and SMG attachments
You would have to get really unlucky to be forced into running a shotgun or SMG as your main weapon for an entire match, so therefore you can afford to leave attachments on the ground. The general rule here should be if you have a weapon then put the attachment on it, if not then leave it on the ground, unless of course you specifically want to run one of these weapons. 

Foregrips
Foregrips are pretty useful, with verticals being great for single shot weapons and angled being good for spraying. But keeping them in your inventory when you have limited space is a questionable play. Not all that many weapons hold them, so there is a good chance you won't use them, and even if you get a weapon that can hold one, you can probably find them by going into any building. They are surprisingly common. 

AR attachments
Chances are you are going to run an AR in most games, so attachments are crucial. But always have in mind what you want to run on that AR. If you have a compensator in your backpack and then see a flash hider, make a choice, don’t take them both. It is a waste of space and having multiple solves nothing. 

Tier 2 - Take it but drop it if you need to

Time to make some potentially tough calls, as we're getting into the territory of things you really want to have, but might have to ditch anyway. Basically if you see any of this stuff and have the space, grab it. But don't worry about ditching it if you need something more important. 

2x, Red Dot and Holographic sights
There are some people out there who prefer the iron sights, but chances are you are going to want some kind of optic on all of your weapons. Red Dots and Holos are pretty common but always useful, so having a couple early on is a good idea, and the same goes for the 2x. That being said if you need to make space feel free to discard these, as they take up room and can easily be found. 

Sniper Attachments
Sniper attachments are pretty rare, so you should always pick them up no matter how early it is. If you have the space you will want to keep these for the whole game, because who knows when you will find a sniper. But the reason these aren’t tier one is because of the sniper spawn rate - they aren’t all that common and these attachments could end up being a waste of space. Keep them for as long as possible, but if there is no sniper in sight and you need the space get them gone. 

Energy Drink
This is a pretty simple one, you should always have as many energy drinks as possible as it is always a good idea to use them if you can. But, as the worst of the boosts out there, it is the one that should be sacrificed if you need space. Simple. 

7.62 ammo
7.62 ammo is not used by all that many weapons, if we ignore those found in crates, but it can be very important. If you end up running an AK or SKS you will need a lot of bullets, and they aren’t always that common. Keep this until you know if you will be running an AK, SKS or Kar98k, then drop it like it is hot if you don’t have any of those. 

Frag Grenades
Frags are the go to grenades for everyone right now, so having as many as possible is a great idea. They do a lot of damage and make clearing out a building a lot easier, so keep them with you. But, there are more useful things out there, so drop them if you have to.

Tier 1 - Take this under any circumstance

This is the very best stuff you can get. Pick this up whenever you see it, even if you already have four in your backpack. You should drop lower tier loot in order to make room for these. 

4x and 8x Scopes
Having some kind of range is key to a good run, as it allows you to scope out your path and find some unexpected pick offs. Having a 4x on any weapon is a good idea, so if you find a couple then certainly keep them both. 8x is great on some weapons, but you won't want two of them at the same time. That being said, keeping them to deny others from having them is a good shout. 

5.56 ammo
5.56 is the ammo type used by almost all of the ARs in PUBG so there is a good chance you will need some during your run. In some games it can also be pretty limited, especially when playing in squads when everyone will need some. So if you see it, pick it up. Only drop this in the rare situation where you don’t have a 5.56 weapon going into the second half of a game. 

First Aid Kits, Med Kits and Painkillers
You will take damage in PUBG, and being able to recover that health is one of the most important aspects of the game. These three are the most effective way of restoring health and should always be picked up. Sometimes you might not need to use many, but in certain situations you might be popping loads, so having a big stack is a great idea. Really, you shouldn’t drop these ever. 

AR and Sniper Suppressors
There is no doubt that these are the most valuable attachments in the game. A suppressed AR or sniper can be enough to win a game, and it totally changes the way you play. As a result these are very rare attachments, so always take these as soon as you see them and never drop them. In the rare situation where you find two, try and make use of them both, or just keep them to deny others.

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Finding the best PUBG armor will keep you alive and enduring throughout the entirety of the game, able to shrug off damage and push through any firefight. But armor is a little more complicated than a single option, with multiple tiers for both vests and helmets to make use of, so it's important to understand what you're getting into before you have to pick through the bones of clothing scraps that you'll find while exploring PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Here's the best PUBG armor you should pick up, with level two often being more useful than level three - read on to find out why.

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Vests

Vests and helmets actually reduce damage by the same amount, assuming they're of the same tier, but what changes is durability - your vest can take a lot more damage than your hat can. With that in mind, here's the basics of what you should be hunting.

Level 1 Police Vest

• Police Vest 200 Durability
• 30% Damage reduction 

With a level one vest, which should be the absolute minimum you have on at all times, you will block around 30% of each shot, which is quite a significant amount. At times, when you are looting a high value area, it can be easy to skip that first level one, thinking you are bound to find a level two before long, but that is a terrible idea, always pick it up. 

The key stats for a level one vest are mostly when it comes to 5.56 ARs, SMGs and shotguns. We don’t have official values for anything in PUBG, but a lot of testing from numerous places suggests that a level one vest means it will take four body shots from a 5.56 AR to kill, instead of three without a vest. For SMGs it pushes the bullets to kill number up by two for all but the Tommy Gun and the same goes for shotguns, pushing the S1897 and S686 to a massive six bullets to kill. 

Level 2 Police Vest

• Police Vest 220 Durability
• 40% Damage reduction 

With just a 10% increase in damage reduction the difference between level one and level two isn’t all that big, so don’t be too concerned if you can’t find one. However, there are a few key weapons that this will protect you from, and of course the extra 10% in general is always good. 

A level two will offer better protection against all of the common sniper rifles. A Kar98k goes from just about two shotting you with a level one, to a clear three shot with a level two. While the SKS and Mini 14 will now require four good body shots instead of three, which is much more manageable. It will also just about make the 5.56 ARs five shot you instead of four, but the damage is so close to four shotting that the difference is not all that useful. 

Level 3 Military Vest

• Military Vest 250 Durability
• 55% Damage reduction 

The Military Vest is of course the dream, with a massive 55% damage reduction that gives you a significant advantage in close range fights. 

The level three once again adds one shot to kill on most common snipers, with the Kar98k taking four shots and the Mini 14 a massive six. Although if you let someone get six shots on you with a Mini something has gone wrong. It also makes the Micro Uzi and S12K pretty useless, as both will take 10 bullets to the chest to bring you down. 

While 55% damage reduction is great, it is worth remembering that durability is a key factor. Chances are you are going to take multiple shots to the area, and vests will get damaged. If you are rocking a full health level two mid way through the game and then find a quarter health level three on a body, maybe leave that where it is. Chances are that if you take another bullet or two that level three will be destroyed, and you will have 0% damage reduction for the rest of the round. Not an ideal situation. 

Helmets

Helmets are their own thing, a separate armor piece that in some cases can do a lot, and in others do nothing at all (which we'll explain momentarily). However, it's better to be behatted than not to be behatted (dehatted?), so go rummaging through loose loot until you see one of the options listed below.

Ballistic Mask

Here’s something a lot of people don’t realise. The Ballistic Mask is purely cosmetic and will not block any incoming damage. Take it if you think it looks cool, but remember it will not help you out at all in any kind of fight. 

Level 1 Motorcycle Helmet

• 80 Durability
• 30% damage reduction 

In terms of damage reduction, the helmets follow the same structure as the vests, just with less durability for each level. However, with headshots being the key to quick kills they are arguably more important, which is why you should never skip over a level one helmet. 

Without a helmet, all snipers and ARs, apart from the VSS, will take you down with one headshot. But with a level one hat, all ARs, the SKS and Mini will take two bullets. That is a massive difference, as it gives you some time to react and hide. It also helps out with all the other weapons, generally giving you a second or two more to battle it out. 

Level 2 Military Helmet

• 150 Durability
• 40% damage reduction

While the level two vest makes some big changes in how many shots it will take to bring you down, the level two helmet is more of a small upgrade in this department. Most things will still be capable of taking you down with just two shots, but the damage reduction means that if a head shot turns into a body shot, you will be able to live a while longer.  

Perhaps the key here is the almost double durability. While it may feel like you never manage to hit a headshot yourself, they are actually pretty common and as a result a level one can be gone after just one fight. The level two has a bit more to it, and will last a lot longer. Not having a helmet is pretty disastrous, so keep the durability factor in mind. 

Level 3 Spetsnaz Helmet 

• 230 Durability
• 55% damage reduction

The level three helmet is where things get really fun. Only the AWM is capable of taking you down with one shot now, with the likes of the Kar98k and M24 dropping all the way down to two. Purely for this fact you should always take a level three, because getting one shotted is the most frustrating thing in PUBG. Elsewhere, all the 5.56 weapons drop to three shots to kill, which is quite high, and shotguns become pretty useless, upping to four and five shots to kill. Be warned that the AK is still capable of two shotting you even with a level three.

Once again, the increase durability is a big factor, and of course a brand new level three is what you should be rocking. Where things differ from vests is when you should stop taking a level three. The big difference in durability means that a half damaged level three will still last almost as long as a full level two, and the damage block is massively important. Really, you only want to be dropping or ignoring a level three in favour of a level two when it gets down to say 10 or 15% durability. Even then, some people will take a one durability level three over a level two if they know there is a big sniper or two in the game, as that one durability will be the difference between getting killed with one shot, or two. 

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The original arena, the PUBG Erangel map was PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds first ever map and remains a favourite for many fans and players. With forests, coastlines cities, rivers and those terrifying open grasslands to explore, it's a staple of the PUBG experience and one that's worth understanding in full when you're dropping in for a firefight. Since remastered, here's everything you need to know about the PUBG Erangel map and how to master it for yourself.

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PUBG Enrangel Map

While loot is randomised in PUBG, the game prioritises risk - so you’ll find more, and more impressive, loot in areas like the main towns and cities. That means players usually flock to those areas in droves, leading to some tense early-game shootouts.

We’ve denoted these areas as “high risk” in the guide below, while fresh players might want to stick to the “low risk” zones - usually a bit more spread out and remote, but with more of a chance to build up an armoury before heading into a firefight.

1. Georgopol (medium-high risk)

Erangel’s largest town, but somewhat lacking in modern facilities. The accommodation consists primarily of derelict apartments, for example. There's a good chance of loot here, as well as running into other people looking for it so it's a slightly risky area to hit first. However, there's a high chance of finding a vehicle if you survive so worth considering when you're more experienced. 

2. School, Rozhok (high risk)

The school is a central location with a high chance of great gear, which is to say it’s fairly popular. Expect an immediate fight if you drop here at the start of a match - the school in particular is an absolute death trap. The buildings can be slow to loot but there's alway a car in the nearby garage. It's middle map placement also means the safe zone is rarely far away.  

3. Quarry (medium risk)

This southwesterly location has a decent chance of spawning rare loot, and lots of isolated buildings. A great spot if the safe zone falls this way but the open space and chance of conflict can be risky.

4. Sosnova Military Base (high risk)

Perhaps the riskiest drop point on the entire map. It's full of rare weapons and armour, which means it's crawling with high level players. It's also isolated on the southern side of the island, making it tricky to get away from. Assuming you make it out alive at all.

5. Stalber (low risk)

A great big mountain with very little loot at the top so a safe starter. Come here for a quiet drop, but don't expect to find much and expect to journey far to make it into the next safe zone.

6. The Bunkers (high risk)

There's always loads of very exotic gear here, but it's also a series of concrete tunnels full of chokepoints and corners. Oh, and people looking for all those guns. If you can get in, get lucky and get out, good luck to you. 

7. Novorepnoye (high risk)

This container yard/dock is another high risk area thanks to its cargo container area full of open areas and blind spots. Plenty of buildings also means loot, making it dangerously attractive to experienced players, but there the high chance of finding good gear, as well as cars and boats, making it worth the risk for some. 

8. The Crater, southwest of Lipovka (high risk)

This area of the map is basically a big hole with five warehouses, two houses and one big military building. So there's plenty of gear and it's a great place to kit out a full squad. However, plenty of other people will have the same idea and the sunken terrain also makes it a popular place for snipers to camp out, shooting down at their victims from up on high. So, in short: dangerous.

9. The Villas (medium-high risk)

This is a tiny area comprising of 8 buildings. It's not a great place for loot but its main strength is strategic - there's an elevated area where the rooftops gives you a great view of the surrounding area. It's perfect for a squad to hole up and defend (assuming you've got some good ranged weapons).

10. West of Novorepnoye (low risk)

Just west of Novorepnoye you'll see a crossroads with a few buildings around it. It's small enough to be ignored by high level players but those houses mean a good chance of gear and the roads usually contain a few cars. The nearby bridge is not somewhere you want to be late game, as it's a often a bottleneck when the playing area constricts. But get in early and clear out and you could get a strong start.

11. North west of Lipovka (low risk)

North west of Lipkova above the crater you'll find several small clusters of houses. You won't find a huge amount of gear here, so it will be quiet, but hit enough buildings and you should scavenge enough to get you started. The roads also mean a good chance of a vehicle too.

Bonus location: Erangel Docks (medium risk)

A later patch added a series of docks and ports along the shores of Erangel. Not only do these add more visual variation to the region's coastlines, but they offer increased loot opportunities where once there was just sand.

The docks can be found at Novorepnoye, Ferry Pier, along the southern beach of the mainland, and the northern beach of Sosnovka Island. Each offers a variety of tactical considerations, such as a lighthouse with increased elevation, or a series of shipping containers that allow for cover.

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A good PUBG guide will help players dominate the competition in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Knowing how to survive the initial drop, find a good range of equipment, and last until the final circle and victory will make sure you claim regular victories - or chicken dinners, as they're also known.

It's not easy though. To survive throughout any game, you'll need map awareness, tactical skill, understanding of the game and quick-thinking reflexes. That's why we've put together this proper PUBG guide to help you not just survive, but thrive in the pan-wielding world of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Controls Guide

If you want to last for longer in PUBG then you need to know how all the controls work, which may sound obvious but some of the inputs are quite different to other games. Learn how to switch from third person aiming to first person scoping, change your grenade throwing motion and more in our guide on how to aim in PUBG on PS4 and Xbox (and the rest of the controls explained).

Beginner's Guide

How does the blue circle work? What the heck can I do with a frying pan? Why is everyone obsessed with chicken? If these are the sorts of questions you're asking yourself, you could definitely benefit from reading our PUBG beginner's guide: frying pans, blue circles and chicken dinners explained.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Survival Tips

If you want to keep going until the final circle, you're going to need some pointers for outliving the other 99 players. To get closer to earning a victorious meal, check out our PUBG tips - 10 ways to stay alive and win that chicken dinner.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Maps

Erangel is a huge place, with a variety of areas and terrains that affect how you move around them and the sort of loot you can expect to find there. Then we have the deserts of Miramar and the compact Sanhock, along with snowy Vikendi and the even smaller Karakin, which have their own unique areas to explore. We've broken down all of the regions to show you how risky each of the main locations are in our map guides:

• PUBG Erangel map
• PUBG Karakin map
• PUBG Miramar map
• PUBG Sanhok map
• PUBG Vikendi map
  
  

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Best Starting Gear

As soon as you parachute into a round of PUBG, your first instinct is to grab as much loot as you can - however, there's only so much you can carry at once, meaning you'll need to prioritise what you take. To help you with these decisions, we've split items into tiers depending on their usefulness in our guide to the best PUBG starting gear - get the best gear to start out with.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Best Guns

Forget the frying pan - if you're going to survive then you need a proper weapon, and PUBG has an array of assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, sniper rifles and more to scavenge. If you want to know which shooters you should look out for then read our Best PUBG guns - what are the best weapons?

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Best Armor

Every helmet and bulletproof vest in PUBG has an armor level between one and three, and understanding the differences in their durability and damage reduction could save your life in a firefight. We've got all the information you need in our PUBG armor - get the best helmets and vests.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds cheats explained

If you're a PC player and have felt that something is not quite right, and that maybe one of your opponents is doing suspiciously well, then it may be that they're using some sort of cheat. If you want to know more about what could be going on, we've got the most well known PUBG cheats explained.

Has Playerunknown's Battlegrounds whet your appetite for eliminations? Then here's a selection of awesome Battle Royale games like PUBG you should check out.

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds studio Krafton is developing a new AAA game.

As was first reported yesterday on December 9 by Exputer, Krafton appears to be staffing up for an unannounced AAA game. Chiefly, a job listing on Krafton's website for a Senior Animator confirms that a potential new employee would be working on a "new unannounced project."

Secondly, there's another job listing on Krafton's official website for a Senior Technical Sound Designer. While this post also makes light of work on an unannounced project, the Sound Designer job goes a slight step further, highlighting that the employee would work on a "state-of-the-art, AAA experience."

Unfortunately, that's all the details we have to go on right now surrounding Krafton's unannounced game. However, there's actually been a lot of activity involving Krafton in the games space over the last year or so. A co-op strategy game called Thunder Tier One was revealed to be in development approximately a year ago in December 2020, and The Castillo Protocol is chugging along in development under the leadership of Dead Space creator Glen Schofield.

In the PUBG space however, it was revealed just earlier today that the battle royale game is going completely free to play in January 2022. The game that arguably put parent company Krafton on the map in the first place will be converting to a free to play model as of January 12, requiring a $12.99 upgrade if you wish to partake in the Ranked modes. However big PUBG remains though, it's clear that Krafton has designs for further adventures outside of the battle royale game.

Check out our guide to the best battle royale games if you want to explore the genre outside of PUBG.

PUBG is going free-to-play early next year, according to an announcement at The Game Awards.

In a high-octane new trailer recapping the game's history, now stretching into its fifth year, publisher Krafton confirmed that players would be able to play for free from January 12, 2022. While the price tag is going away, some parts of the game will still be paid for - new players will have to pay $12.99 for a 'Battlegrounds Plus' account upgrade which grants access to ranked matches and some in-game items. Previous owners won't have to pay that fee, and will get some of their own special items thanks to a 'PUBG Special Commemorative Pack'.

New or existing players can pre-register for the free game via its website, linking new or existing Krafton accounts to unlock even more rewards. It's clear that the team behind the game is looking to encourage a large number of new and returning players, as the website contains a number of resources explaining different aspects of battle royale gameplay, from gunplay and looting down to ideas as fundamental as the closing circle.

Back in August, Krafton hosted a week-long free-to-play event that was intended to gauge interest in an entirely free version of PUBG. Given this upcoming change, that seems to have been a success. A free-to-play mobile version of the game, PUBG Lite, shut down in April 2021.

PUBG helped kickstart the battle royale craze after its release in 2017, and can be considered a major source of inspiration for Fortnite. At the height of its popularity, in early 2018, it topped 3.2 million concurrent players on Steam - a record that it still holds today - and is still the third most popular game on the platform. It remains to be seen whether the transition to free-to-play will offer a significant boost, but it certainly has a strong foundation to build from.

Getting back to where it all started? Here are some more of the best battle royale games.

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds director Brendan Greene has announced his departure to form a new studio.

Announced earlier today on September 1 via a press release, Brendan "Playerunknown" Greene has officially left Krafton Inc. to form Playerunknown Productions. This new studio, under the leadership of the PUBG veteran, will open up in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, with Krafton Inc. holding a minor stake in the brand new developer.

"I'm so very grateful to everyone at PUBG and KRAFTON for taking a chance on me and for the opportunities they afforded me over the past four years," Greene said in a statement through the press release. "Today, I'm excited to take the next step on my journey to create the kind of experience I've envisaged for years. Again, I'm thankful for everyone at Krafton for supporting my plans, and I'll have more to reveal more about our project at a later date."

For what it's worth, the press release refers to Playerunknown Productions as "exploring the systems needed to enable massive scale within open-world games." It seems as though Greene already has a pretty good idea of what he wants to work at the brand new studio in Amsterdam.

Greene might be associated with PUBG, but he took a step back from development in 2019, and neither Krafton nor Greene ever elaborated on what Greene was working on at the studio outside of PUBG. 

Elsewhere, we've still got The Castillo Protocol to look forward to from the PUBG developer, and you can read all about that in our Castillo Protocol interview from earlier this year.

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds is going free-to-play for a week, and receiving a name change.

As first reported by PCGamesN earlier today on August 6, PUBG is temporarily going free-to-play later this month. The free-to-play week will be commencing next week, starting on August 10 and is going to run until August 16, which will also coincide with Kpop mega-group Blackpink's crossover content launching in the game, with decals on the airship and buildings.

This free-to-play week for PUBG actually lines up with previous claims from a reputable leaker. Last month in July, a leaker claimed that PUBG would be holding a temporary free-to-play session in August, to gauge player interest in the battle royale game transforming into a completely free-to-play game forever. The confirmation of the free-to-play session would now appear to lend significant credence to that past claim.

Elsewhere for the battle royale shooter is a name change, as we previously highlighted. The new name for Playerunknown's Battlegrounds going forward is "PUBG: Battlegrounds," which means the full name of the game is now officially Playerunknown's Battlegrounds: Battlegrounds. We can pretty easily see the game still being fondly referred to as "PUBG," by its dedicated player base, though.

PUBG actually just got a lot bigger last month, with the launch of the new Taego map. This map is 8km by 8km, making it the biggest map in the game for a fair few years, and giving players a vast new area to explore. Next year, the expanded universe surrounding PUBG is going to expand in an entirely different way, when The Callisto Protocol releases, a new horror game set in the PUBG universe from several veterans of the Dead Space series.

For more on the latest map to hit the battle royale game, head over to our PUBG Taego map guide for a complete walkthrough.

PUBG could be going free-to-play, it's been claimed by a well-known leaker.

Just below, you can see a tweet published over the last weekend by a fairly renowned leaker in the PUBG space. This leaker, called PlayerIGN (no affiliation with the outlet), claims that Playerunknown's Battlegrounds could be going free-to-play, if the developers see a strong enough response from the community over the coming free-to-play event that's taking place next month.

The leaker notes that PUBG's developers actually wanted to go free-to-play all the way back in 2019, a few years after the game originally released in early access. However, they didn't receive the feedback from players that would justify the decision to switch to a free-to-play model.

Two years later in 2021, it seems like PUBG Corp is having another go of it. Right now, the free-to-play period for PUBG hasn't actually been announced by the developers, so we don't know for sure that it is taking place next month in August. Here's hoping the new claim is accurate though, because it offers a new lease of life to a great battle royale game.

It's interesting to note that a free-to-play version of PUBG did actually exist, but it was shut down earlier this year by PUBG Corp. The game was called PUBG Lite, and was a significantly easier-to-run version of the base game, which let an entirely new audience with weaker rigs get into the game. The COVID-19 pandemic appeared to factor into PUBG Lite's ultimate closure, when the game was terminated earlier this year in May.

Just earlier this month, PUBG received a brand new map called Taego. Arriving on PC on July 7 and just over a week later for console players on July 15, Taego signalled a return to a bigger map size, which PUBG players have been messing around on since the game first launched. Taego is pretty colossal, taking up eight square kilometres in total size, and it's the first map of its size in well over three years for the battle royale shooter.

Elsewhere, rumors have another PUBG-related game launching at some point later this year for both PC and consoles.

The upcoming PUBG Taego map will soon arrive in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on both PC and console. This is exciting news, especially for PUBG players who prefer playing on large battle royale maps. The PUBG Taego map, initially known by its code name ‘Tiger’, is the first 8x8 map added to the game since the release of the Miramar map.

Thanks to the teasers on the official PUBG YouTube channel, we already know a bit about the Taego map landscape, gameplay features, and the Taego map release date. On top of that, we’ll discuss some of the biggest PUBG player theories surrounding the Taego map update so far.

PUBG Taego map release date

PUBG recently confirmed the Taego map release date in a short teaser video. If you play PUBG on the PC, you’ll be able to play the new map from July 7th onwards. For console players, the Taego map release date is on July 15th. This means that the Taego map release is part of the PUBG 12.2 update.

PUBG Taego map landscape and gameplay

Thanks to its large size, playing on the upcoming PUBG Taego map will likely feel similar to the battle royale combat on the PUBG Miramar map and PUBG Erangel map. Although every PUBG map update since Miramar featured smaller maps, Taego brings back the slower-paced experience from early PUBG. With a map this big, there’s less chance of getting killed right after landing. However, you also need to travel much further and it might be harder to score kills.

As its landscape is based on that of South Korea, the Taego map looks more similar to Erangel than Miramar (the latter of whom features a desert landscape). We can spot grass, trees, and urban areas in the few sneak peeks we get from the teasers. While Miramar is often described as a ‘sniper map’ because of the barren landscape, it seems that gameplay on Taego will be more similar to the mid-range combat on Erangel. 

PUBG Taego map new features

We only got two very short teasers so far, but that’s enough to start theorizing about the new features we’ll find on the PUBG Taego map. It’s already confirmed that we can indeed expect new gameplay mechanics, but it’s still unclear what those mechanics will be. These are some of our best Taego theories:

• Inverted blue zone. What’s up with the small blue zone in the teaser? It looks like the blue zone is expanding from the middle of an urban building. Perhaps it means that Taego will feature several smaller inverted blue zones. It seems unlikely that a single inverted blue zone would work well, as this wouldn’t slowly drive all players to one place while nearing endgame. The inverted blue zone might therefore be a replacement for red zones, or perhaps a part of the rumored gulag.
• Gulag. Not exactly an unknown feature to those who frequent other battle royale games, but should we really expect the Gulag to be added in PUBG Taego? According to well-known PUBG dataminer PlayerIGN, the answer is yes. He recently tweeted that Gulags would be a new feature on the Taego map, along with a picture of a smaller island.
• Self-revive. There’s a very short teaser scene that looks like a player reviving herself. If it’s indeed not another player who initiated the revive, we might find a new type of revival item on the Taego map.
• Massive airdrops. We see a huge amount of loot crates being dropped in the teaser. Although it looks like this mass drop is done by a plane, we also get to see a Chinook helicopter in a different scene. Perhaps the plane will drop a large amount of loot boxes at the start of a game on Taego, and the Chinook will drop individual ones later on.
• A new landing mechanic. The plane catches fire in the teaser, which might be a sign that landing mechanics on Taego are changed. This one is a bit of a wild guess though.

PUBG Taego map new weapons and vehicles

Finally, we get a glimpse of at least two new weapons and one new vehicle in the teaser. As PUBG players were quick to figure out, the new vehicle looks like a Hyundai Pony Coupe, at the weapons are a 5.56 K2 assault rifle and a 5.56 MK12 DMR. 

And that's everything we can expect from the PUBG Taego map based on the teasers and leaks. Let's see if we really find ourselves in a PUBG Gulag soon!

PUBG is getting a new map next month and it's returning to larger sizes of the game's early days. 

The new map is called Taego and it will be eighth added to the game. Previously referred to as Codename: Tiger, it sees the return of 8x8 sq km maps and will be launching on July 7 on PC. Consoles will see it landing on July 15. 

This is the first map in three years that supports this larger scale, which hasn't been seen since the desert-themed Miramar map launched. Since then, the game has mostly added smaller maps. Fans have been wishing for a return to the pace and scale of the first maps and it seems they are being rewarded. 

In a teaser trailer, we get a brief look at the layout which seems to consist of a smaller island just off the coast of a larger landmass. Taego will be set in Korea, paying homage to the game's parent company. 

The new map is likely to please older fans of the PUBG formula, which has become more focused on quicker and faster gameplay as it's evolved. With the smaller maps, players are meant to meet more often and be in more firefights. That has seen the game move farther away from the slower pace that made it famous. With the constant firefights, PUBG lost a little bit of the terror that came in the quieter periods of downtime during matches. 

This refocus to larger maps isn't a one-off either. The developers have already announced Codename: Kiki which is another 8x8 map coming after Taego. No specific release date has been revealed, but it is currently expected to arrive in late 2021 or early 2022. 

There are also several games headed by PUBG Corp. One announced title is The Callisto Protocol, a horror game from the makers of Dead Space that is supposedly PUBG-related. However, there have also been job listings hinting at another unannounced title from the developer that is said to be a sci-fi shooter with monsters and mechs.

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New job listings at PUBG Corp suggest that the studio is working on an unannounced shooter which incorporates sci-fi themes like monster and mechs.

Originally spotted by PUBG sleuth PlayerIGN (as PCGamesN noted), several job listings recently popped up on PUBG Corp's Korean web portal. Curiously, 14 of these are attached to the project "Vertical," which doesn't fit with any of the games that we know the studio's working on. The PUBG-adjacent Callisto Protocol has its own job listings via external developer Striking Distance, and both PUBG Mobile and PUBG: New State are individually labeled in this careers page. In other words, this looks like something new. 

These job listings are all in Korean, so we've relied on two translation apps to help us parse them. Details plucked from job listings should never be taken as gospel, especially for games so early in development, and that's especially true here given the language barrier. That said, a few recurring keywords and themes suggest that whatever Vertical is, it's quite different from the PUBG games we're familiar with. 

One listing for a character modeler notes "human/creature" models, and specifies "monster character creation" as well as "cyborgs, robots, and exosuits" in a list of potential subjects. Similar themes come up under character concept artist, including "cyborgs, robots, weapons, and mechas." An animator listing also mentions "humans, creatures, monsters, animals, insects, firearms, vehicles, etc." 

A listing for a system designer offers some more fundamental details. It calls for experience with "sci-fi genre shooting and action games" as well as "content related to puzzle games in video games." This helps narrow things down from an 'every theme and the kitchen sink' approach to a more specific sci-fi shooter. It's also clear that Unreal Engine 4 is the bedrock of the game, as it comes up in multiple job listings. 

Likewise, a world/level designer listing asks for people with "experience playing open-world, shooting, and action games," not to mention familiarity with "procedural generation." These are the only mentions of open-world and procedurally generated content that I could find, and given how slight they are, I wouldn't commit to project Vertical being a fully open-world or procedurally generated game. We can't even definitively rule out battle royale as the genre, but sci-fi appears to be the overarching theme. 

We do know that some sort of "PUBG-related" game is coming by the end of 2022.

PUBG Lite – which enables players with low-end PCs to fight for a chicken dinner – is closing down at the end of the month.

In a statement, the development team said that while they had hoped that the game had provided "a fun way to stay safe" during the "strenuous times of the COVID-19 pandemic", the time had come to shutter the free-to-play project. It did not give a reason for the closure.

Service is scheduled to end on 29 April 2021.

"We are deeply grateful for the passion and support from the astounding number of PUBG Lite fans that have been with us," a statement on the official website explains. "During the strenuous times of the COVID-19 pandemic, we hope that PUBG Lite was able to provide our fans a fun way to stay safe.

"Unfortunately, we have made the difficult decision to close service after much deliberation and the time has come for our journey to end. We regretfully inform you that service of PUBG Lite is scheduled to end on April 29th, 2021 (UTC)."

The statement further explains that players will be able to continue to play the game and spend in-game credits as normal, "including the L-COIN that you already have", until the termination time. 

ICYMI, the latest PUBG update has added a Metal Gear Solid 5-style Fulton extraction system that lets you and your teammates redeploy to somewhere else on the map. This new feature comes as part of Patch 11.1 which is also reintroducing the new and improved Paramo map along with updates to the medals system. 

A new "PUBG-related" game is reportedly set to come to PC and consoles. According to a report, there are plans to release another game set in the PUBG universe "by next year" on PC and consoles. In Bloomberg's interview with Krafton CEO Kim Chang-Han, other PUBG projects are also mentioned, including a "new battle royale mobile title" based on PUBG set to launch this year. 

PUBG has been wildly successful since it first launched in 2017, selling over a whopping 70 million copies on PC and consoles.  

If you’re getting ready to dive back into Paramo for some battle royale action, then check out our best PUBG guns and best PUBG armor guides to see what gear you should be grabbing.

A new "PUBG-related" game is reportedly set to come to PC and consoles. 

According to a report from Bloomberg, there are plans to release another game set in the PUBG universe "by next year" on PC and consoles. In Bloomberg's interview with Krafton CEO Kim Chang-Han, other PUBG projects are also mentioned, including a "new battle royale mobile title" based on PUBG set to launch this year. 

Due to release sometime in 2022, The Callisto Protocol, a survival horror game set in the PUBG universe, is also in the works from Striking Distance Studios. As the studio's debut title that was first announced back in December last year, Callisto Protocol's creator and studio lead Glen Schofield recently explained just how the new game is part of the PUBG universe, with "little connections here and there". Scholfield is most known for co-creating the sci-fi horror Dead Space, as well as founding studio Sledgehammer Games.  

Not much else is revealed about the other PUBG-related title said to be coming next year. While it does mention that it will be coming to PC and consoles, we don't know for sure if this means it will only be landing on Xbox Series X and PS5 and not PS4 and Xbox One.  Interestingly, Bloomberg's report also says that PUGB company Krafton is also planning "an initial public offering in mid-to-late 2021". 

PUBG has been wildly successful since it first launched in 2017, with Bloomberg highlight that it has sold over a whopping 70 million copies on PC and consoles. Given its popularity, it makes sense that the company is branching out and expanding on the game's universe with several new upcoming projects.  

The Callisto Protocol marks Glen Schofield's return to survival horror, but it's so much more than a next-gen Dead Space. 

The PUBG Season 10 launch trailer has arrived a full week ahead of the season's December 16 debut (or December 17 on console), and it's all about a new PvE challenge mode called Haven. 

Haven is the name of the new map and its unique mode. It drops lobbies of 32 players – 16 teams of two, assuming no one-player duo queues – into the urban remains of a once-prosperous industrial site that's now overrun with heavily armed Pillar mercenaries. The lore is that Pillar was hired by Tythonic, a biotech company that gutted Haven when its industries hit a drought. 

On top of hunting down players, Haven will challenge PUBG fans to outlive their competition by evading Pillar mercenaries. The trailer shows off Pillar's scout helicopter and armored vehicle, and there are plenty of armed guards combing the island. Think of it as a zombies mode, except the zombies are very much alive and have more than enough guns to make sure that you aren't. You'll need to hide from Pillar, take them down when you can to get at stacked loot caches, and keep moving to stay out of the range of their attack vehicles.

Developer PUBG Corp. describes Haven as "a wholly unique PUBG experience exclusive to Season 10," and given the game mode's smaller lobbies and 1x1 map, it says the average Haven round will be "considerably shorter" than a normal PUBG match. Haven will only be available from December 16 through March 24 in both first-person and third-person modes, so if you've been holding out for a PvE challenge with PUBG's universe and gunplay, get your fill this winter. 

Alongside Haven's reveal, PUBG Corp. released a quick patch note preface for Season 10. The highlights include custom outfit loadouts, team deathmatch loadouts, and unspecified "adjustments to ranked point calculations." 

PUBG Corp. subsidiary Striking Distance is set to reveal a new game helmed by Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield.  

PUBG is heading to the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S later this year, and it's getting a bunch of enhancements on each next-gen platform.

Earlier today, PUBG Corp. announced that the battle royale shooter would be a day one arrival for all three platforms. So PUBG will be launching on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on November 10, and a few days later on November 12 for the PS5 in the US, and a week later on November 19 for the PS5 in the UK and Europe.

Additionally, PUBG will be taking advantage of next-gen hardware. The Xbox Series X version of the game will be using the Xbox One X build of the game, so you'll be able to prioritize frame rate for a smooth 60FPS while playing. This is the same for the PS5 version of PUBG, which is using the PS4 Pro version of the game for a stable 60FPS option.

However, the same can't be said for the Xbox Series S. If you're playing PUBG on Microsoft's less powerful next-gen console, you'll be capped out at 30FPS, as the Xbox One S version of the game currently is. PUBG Corp. says they're looking for a way to raise the frame rates of the One S and Series S versions of the game.

"After rigorous testing, we’re pleased to say that the game performance is extremely smooth and stable, with faster loading and little to no frame drops thanks to the power of next-gen," announced the PUBG Corp. "Game performance and stability is a priority for us and we want to thank everyone for their support."

It was only last week that PUBG introduced the 60FPS option for the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. Along with the introduction of the game's first dynamic map through PUBG Season 9, this was the first time that console players were able to get the game running at an increased frame rate of over 30FPS.

If you're still running the gauntlet of PUBG, or looking to get into the game for the first time ahead of next-gen, head over to our PUBG tips guide for more.

PUBG will let players on the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro play the game in 60 frames per second.

The new frame rate option was actually included alongside the launch of PUBG Season 9 on the game's Test Servers earlier today. Within the settings menu for the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro versions of the game, you'll find the "Framerate Priority" option, which lets players on those consoles priotize frame rate for 60FPS gameplay.

As the blog post from PUBG Corp. explains, the frame rate result is achieved by dropping the game's resolution down to 1080p on the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. Although PUBG Corp. says that they're exploring bringing the frame rate option to Xbox One and PS4 platforms, they can't guarantee the feature is a certainty for either platform.

This feature arrives alongside Season 9 for PUBG, which chiefly introduces the battle royale game's first dynamic map. The South American-based Paramo map can be different from game to game: in one case, for example, rivers of molten lava may descend from the volcano positioned on the map. It's a really interesting way to shake things up from game to game, for even the most veteran PUBG players.

There's also a new playlist: Ranked Solo Queue. This is a mode where hardcore players will have only themselves to rely on to climb the ranked leaderboards, a far cry from the usual team-based ranked mode games. You can find a full list of the rules for Ranked Solo Queue here.

For everything you need to know about the Test Server for PUBG, head over to our complete PUBG PTS guide.

PUBG Season 9 will introduce a new map, a highly requested solo ranked queue, and a condensed Survivor Pass when it launches later this month. PC players will get access on October 21, while Xbox One, PS4, and Stadia survivors will drop in on October 29. 

The new map Paramo is the headliner for the new season. Compared to previous maps, Paramo is a bit smaller at roughly 3x3 kilometers for 64 players, but it was designed to make good use of its limited size. Paramo is PUBG's first dynamic map, and as PUBG Corp. explains, it "includes a dynamic world system that changes major landmarks between matches, making every trip a unique experience where survivors must adapt their tactics". 

Paramo is also more dangerous compared to previous maps. Its blue zone shrinks slowly but will kill you faster if you get caught out, and wandering outside of the active play zone for too long will kill you instantly. This being a volcanic island, you'll also have to negotiate streams of molten lava that can make short work of vehicles or your feet (and also the rest of you). These risks have been somewhat offset by the addition of a new healing item, the critical response kit, which can revive a downed player in just one second, aka a heck of a lot faster than a normal revive. There are also new item boxes and supply helicopters which you can damage in order to claim their cargo. 

In addition to a new map, PUBG Season 9 will feature a new playlist: ranked solo queue. It's exactly what it sounds like: a way for players to climb the competitive ladder without relying on teammates, which is great news for people with smaller PUBG social circles or lone wolves who want to prove themselves. You can find the full ranked rules in the PUBG Season 9 patch notes.

This season is also making a noteworthy change to the Survivor Pass structure. Compared to previous seasons, the PUBG Season 9 pass is shorter at only 50 levels and will run for just two months. 

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A fresh PUBG leak hints that a new mode coming to the battle royale will be a "mix of FPS and Auto Battler genre".

In a new video, leaker PlayerIGN states the new mode – thought to be called Vostok – will see players take each other on in a 1v1 capacity, rotating through numerous encounters until there's just a single player left – which is standard fare for a battle royale, of course.

Given three lives, each player needs to use the money and rewards from each victorious round to level up and improve their chances for the next. Once all three lives have been spent, you're out (thanks, PCGN).

Here, check out PlayerIGN's video yourself:

Given leaks are just that – leaks – it's impossible to say when the new mode will roll out, or even that it definitely will. For the record, PlayerIGN thinks we'll get it either later in the 8.3 update or even with season 9. 

ICYMI, PUBG now has bots - the kind that help newer players learn the game, not the kind that shoot you from across the map with aim hacks. Developer PUBG Corp added them to the influential battle royale game earlier this year and explained the reason behind its decision in a letter to the community.

In the letter, PUBG Corp. said it's noticed that more and more new players are being taken out of matches early without even dealing any damage, making it tough to start. Adding in bots will hopefully let new players get familiar with PUBG's combat mechanics without immediately dying from veterans' cross-map sniper shots.

The latest PUBG lore drop revisits the question of why the titular Battlegrounds exist at all, and kicks off a light ARG tied to the re-release of the Sanhok map in July.

These PUBG tips may not help you find the Sanhok 4, but they will help you stay alive when you drop on Sanhok for the first time in a while.

The PUBG Karakin map has a smaller play area than its older brothers, but you'll still need to outlast 63 other players if you want to take home the win. What looks at first glance like a mini-Miramar, with arid deserts and sandy dunes, actually has a lot more going on than you might think. Between the underground tunnels, destructible passageways and hidden loot caches (including the fun Sticky Bomb weapon), the PUBG Karakin map makes the most out of its 2 x 2km size with a wealth of intricacies. Here's where to land, what to look for, and how to survive.

PUBG Erangel map | PUBG Miramar map | PUBG Sanhok map | PUBG Vikendi map

Speaking of destructibility, nowhere is safe in Karakin. A new hazard called the Black Zone will level buildings in an instant, so you’ll need to listen out for the telltale siren and check the map for the purple highlight. Without further ado, let's take a look at the best places to drop into for loot, and assess how risky each of them are.

PUBG Karakin map

For further details on each of the numbered areas on the PUBG Karakin map, take a look at our descriptions below.

Compounds (Various Locations)

It’s tough to say just how risky looting these small huts are, because they are dotted all over Karakin. In fact, you’re just as likely to end up with a match-winning weapon as you are to find absolutely nothing.

If you have a sticky bomb though, be on the lookout for destructible floors that can get you into the tunnels below. Not all Compounds have them, but the tunnels offer diverse loot.

1. Al Hayik (Low to Medium Risk)

Found at the south of Karakin, this is the smallest named location on the map. That often means a fairly low amount of footfall, although you might find more company if the initial flight goes anywhere near it at the start.

The residential buildings are all fairly small, meaning you can clear them quickly before moving to the next.

2. Tunnels (Low to Medium Risk)

As we mentioned earlier, Compounds can lead into underground tunnels but there are other areas too – notably in the centre of the map. If you do need to blow open an entrance, be warned that it will draw attention to your position, perhaps more than with any other map because of the small size.

These claustrophobic tunnels are likely to be havens for those hunting for loot or trying to steer clear of enemies. There are even some underwater areas, but since you’ll be vulnerable while you’re swimming through them it might be easier to avoid these altogether.

3. Hadiqa Nemo (Medium Risk)

This port town to the east of the map can be frantic when first landing but offers more tactical flexibility than you may at first appreciate.

For one, the numerous shipping containers can be just as handy as buildings for fresh weaponry and equipment, while the piers are handy for hiding if you aren’t lucky enough to grab a gun quickly.

4. Bahr Sahir (Medium Risk)

A sizeable town that many use as a stepping stone to Al Habar, Bahr Sahir offers plenty of buildings to loot. With many of them having multiple entrances and exits, there’s a chance you could sneak in and sneak out with a full complement of weaponry without anyone seeing you.

There’s one large warehouse near the Water Tower which offers some prime loot, but it’s become a well-known early-game hotspot.

5. Bashara (Medium to High Risk)

Laying to the west of the map is Bashara, an urban area with plenty of verticality. That’s both a blessing and a curse, as firing on an enemy from one rooftop could see you put right in the sights of another that’s even higher up.

Thankfully, there are enough alleyways and tight areas that you can lose pursuers if needed, but the map does get busy quickly – so you might need to dodge players until you can get your hand on a decent weapon.

6. Cargo Ship (High Risk)

Getting into the realm of the really tough landing spots, Cargo Ship doesn’t necessarily always offer the best loot but it will almost always offer a lot of it. This ship moored on the Southwest coast of Karakin is home to shipping containers aplenty, with more on land.

There’s a chance to be fully stocked within minutes of landing such is the sheer concentration of items and equipment, but that does tend to make it exceedingly popular. If you’re not the first to arm yourself, you might want to hide in the sea.

7. Al Habar (High Risk)

At the opposite end of the map is Al Habar, the largest urban area and most densely populated in terms of buildings and, most likely, opponents. Al Habar offers plenty of weapons and gear, but you’ll have to navigate increasingly tall buildings to find much of it which leads to some tense indoor encounters.

Add to that the possibility of sniper fire coming from anywhere when you’re on exposed rooftops, and you’ll have a lot to consider if you want to drop here.

8. Jamila Textiles (High Risk)

Originally a well-kept secret, this location doesn’t specifically show up by name on the map but offers a series of factories to loot. Unfortunately, many players have caught on now, meaning if you make it to Jamila Textiles you’ll undoubtedly have a fight on your hands.

If you do survive a skirmish there, however, you’ll find yourself well-equipped – and overlooking some of the other popular areas like Al Habar.

PUBG cheats | PUBG tips | PUBG mobile tips | PUBG beginner's guide | Best PUBG starting gear | PUBG armor | Best PUBG gun | How to aim in PUBG on consoles

The latest PUBG lore drop revisits the question of why the titular Battlegrounds exist at all, and kicks off a light ARG tied to the upcoming re-release of the Sanhok map. 

Sanhok will return on Wednesday, July 22, and it seems like it will have some ties to the Sanhok 4 revealed in the video above. The video opens with a behind-the-curtain look at the folks maintaining the in-universe Battlegrounds matches, complete with stream chat moderator and Blue Zone Guy. Things quickly go to hell when a squad of four especially dangerous participants drop off the net and invade the control bunker on the island. The video ends with an appearance from the no-doubt disgustingly rich mastermind behind the Battlegrounds, who's become a recurring shadowy character in these lore drops. 

Profiles for the Sanhok 4 are available on the PUBG website. They're all some flavor of murderer, basically, from born and raised psychopaths to ex-military turned mercenaries. PUBG Corp. not-so-subtly invites players to participate in the investigation into the Sanhok 4's goals and whereabouts, and it says additional hints will be shared in the days ahead, so expect this to come to a head on Wednesday. 

It's not quite as bizarre as that Jonathan Frakes segment about a child murderer, but I reckon the Sanhok 4 archives are a worthy addition to the growing library of weird-ass PUBG lore. Like most players, I always just kind of accepted that PUBG dropped 100 players onto an island full of guns Because Video Game, but I'll be damned if it isn't fun to watch PUBG Corp. graft an actual story onto things. 

These PUBG tips may not help you find the Sanhok 4, but they will help you stay alive when you drop on Sanhok for the first time in a while.

Players have been using PUBG cheats since the days of early access, and this is a big issue for the developers as they try to maintain fairness and balance for all players in the online battle royale. Despite spending years hitting players who step out of line with the ban-hammer, it still feels like PUBG cheats aren't going away any time soon. This problem came to light again late in 2019, when the well known YouTube personality Dr Disrespect was killed by a hacker while playing the game, which lead to him uninstalling the game and embarking on one of his trademark rants to his followers.

While the Doc didn’t exactly hold back with his words, it shows the scale of the PUBG cheats issue still facing the game. We’ve put together some of the key things to look out for, and information on how to report a PUBG player you suspect is cheating. Read on, and help root out those that unfortunately ruin the experience for everyone else.

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Types of PUBG cheats

When it comes to PUBG cheats there are two types of hacks that are pretty common, aim hacks and speed hacks. Both are pretty self explanatory, one makes you speed round the map at a rapid pace, while the other will automatically make sure that your bullets always head towards an opponent. Then there are a number of more subtle cheats that aren’t usually as obvious. 

PUBG aimbots and hacks

PUBG aimbots and hacks are probably the most annoying things out there. They will take control of a players aim and automatically target it towards opponents. This can be abused in multiple ways. The most obvious is that every bullet they fire that has a line of sight towards another player will hit, and is the explanation to why other players seem to be able to hit ridiculous cross map shots. 

Some aim hacks will also add auto fire, so if the hack detects that it has an unobstructed shot at an opponent it will automatically fire. This is basically an auto win hack, if you even so much go close to someone running this hack you will likely die. Fortunately this will be incredibly obvious in your death replay most of the time, so you can hit that report button and send the cheater packing. 

PUBG speed hacks

PUBG speed hacks are a less damaging option, and can at times be pretty amusing to witness. They usually give the player a massive speed increase, meaning they can go from one side of the map to the other in seconds. It makes them near impossible to take down as they can be in the middle of Pochinki before a bullet you fired at them in Gatka will land, and means they can just run around and take down any players they see. 

The actually usefulness of this is more limited than an aim hack. The hacker becomes obvious instantly, so this is probably only good for a couple of games before they get banned, and in the later stages of a game it makes them way more likely to slip into the blue and die unintentionally. 

PUBG recoil scripts

Almost all of the weapons in PUBG have some kind of recoil, and you are expected to learn how to control it or reset the recoil by implementing a short delay between shots. However, some people decide to download scripts or macros that automatically manage the recoil. This means all they have to do is press the fire button and don’t have to adjust their mouse to account for the recoil, as the script will do it all for them and every shot will go exactly where they want it to. It’s not quite an aim hack as it doesn’t lock on to a target, but it does give players a massive advantage in fights. Unfortunately they are also quite difficult to detect, as this could just be someone who has mastered that particular weapons recoil. 

PUBG wall hacks

Wall hacks basically allow cheaters to see other players through walls, or add extra UI elements to reveal a players location. The most common versions show an outline of players, or their skeleton, to the hacker if they are in close proximity. This means that hackers don’t see the location of players on the other side of the map, but can use the information to their advantage to get a drop on unsuspecting players who think they are hidden. If a hacker is smart they can use a wall hack and still remain undetected, because it’s difficult to prove that they didn’t hear you or have some other legit information that lead to your death. 

Other PUBG cheats

There are quite a few other cheats out there, or ones that we have seen in the past. Quick looting is a common one, which allows players to pick up everything on a loot pile and automatically equip items they need within a second. Admittedly this isn’t that useful, as most skilled players can do this with a drag looting technique anyway. Some players have also claimed to have working lag switches, which are designed to make other players in the game lag and give the hacker an advantage, but we must say we have never seen one actually being used. There’s also some hacks that allow players to use flying vehicles that travel at a rapid pace, and one amazing cheat that allowed players to have extendable arms so their body would still be in cover but they could reach up into the sky and still shoot. Although that one seems to have disappeared in recent times. 

How to report PUBG cheaters

If you do come across an obvious cheater in PUBG there is always that big old report button on the death screen that you can hit. Generally speaking PUBG Corp is pretty good at banning any hackers, so any obvious ones you do report shouldn’t be around for too long. That doesn’t stop your game from being ruined, but it might save someone else’s, so always hit report if you come across a cheater. 

There is also the anti-cheat systems in PUBG that auto detect some known hacks and ban the player automatically. PUBG Corp seem to keep this updated with all the big known hacks, so it’s not often that a specific hack will be around for too long, however there will always be people developing new ones to get around the system. 

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The new PUBG Ranked Mode has been added to benefit both competitive and casual players, according to the developer PUBG Corporation. 

Although the competitive element is inherent in the new mode's name, the developer has explained that actually "Ranked Mode is our answer to what it means to be good at PUBG". 

In an interview with GamesRadar, Brian Corrigan, Head of NA, PUBG stated that "Ranked has been one of the most requested features by players for years. The decision to do it actually benefits both types of players. Casual players get a mode that caters more to their needs - helping them have an easier onramp instead of simply getting eliminated early by players with more experience. 

"Conversely, experienced players get a new challenge. Instead of taking out new players, they’re pitted against real players that have already mastered the basic skills. One additional benefit of ranked is that you know players in that mode are there for one reason - to test and prove their skills. 

"If you compare that with normal mode, some players are there to create content, others might be there to work on making progress in the season pass, etc. In ranked mode, they’re there for only one reason - to prove they’re the best."

The developer recognises that people play PUBG for a variety of different reasons, with different players enjoying unique aspects of the game - not just always aiming for that chicken dinner.

The hope is that the Ranked Mode is much more focused, with players knowing more what to expect when they start a match than in other modes. 

"It launches this season with a new ruleset that is very close in spirit to the one we use in our Esports program, as well as a ranking algorithm that considers various aspects including individual engagements and final placement to determine each player's skill relative to another."

PUBG Season 7.2 started earlier this month, and along with the Ranked Mode brought with it a number of new (and returning) features, including the jerry can, weapons balancing, shotgun reworks, and more. 

For more PUBG news, you need to watch this video starring Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes, because it's the weirdest thing you'll see all week