In this article, we explore the fundamental question: is PUBG good? 

Introduction

PUBG: Battlegrounds is a competitive PVP survival shooter that takes players into an intense last man standing battle. It was the first of its kind and the founder of the battle royale genre; sparking a gaming revolution upon release back in March 2017.

While the initial groundbreaking phase is over, the game has seen a multitude of changes since its release. Thus, a fundamental question has to be asked in 2023: is PUBG (still) good? 

To get an objective answer, we look at various aspects of the game, such as the story, gameplay, reliability, technical performance and others. Let’s start with the story. 

Story

While there is no story plot in PUBG, the whole idea behind battle royale is based on a dystopian-horror novel from Koushun Takami. In his bestselling 1999 book, Japanese students are forced to kill each other on an island under control by a brutal totalitarian government. The novel was made into a film just a year later. In 2009, Quentin Tarantino declared Battle Royale as his top film choice from the previous 20 years.

Although none of the original content is integrated into PUBG, the true essence of the game lies in its gameplay.

Gameplay

The gameplay of PUBG is relatively straightforward. 100 players drop out of the plane to freely search the map for loot in order to survive an ever-decreasing circle. This forces players to inevitably bump into each other and ultimately face off in decisive close-quarters combat. The winner gets the chicken dinner. Win the dinner, or die trying.

The in-game character controls are mostly intuitive and function well. However, the user interface in the main menu is flawed, at least on Xbox One. It always takes ages when switching between tabs, especially when you try to put on different skins in the customization tab. It all looks nice, but you can’t really use it properly. 

Another aspect worth looking at is the loot balance. Long story short, it is working really well. You never find the same weapons and loot in one spot, so it is in fact randomly distributed. Apparently, the circle shrinking mechanism is working randomly as well. 

PUBG is a mostly slow-paced, action-packed, and challenging survival shooter, which revolutionized the multiplayer world back in 2017. 

Multiplayer 

PUBG has a large and diverse global player base, with a significant part of players from Asia, Europe, and Northern America. 

Within its first month back in March 2017, PUBG sold over one million copies, which was the fastest time for an Early Access title to reach that number in sales. It continued to climb the charts swiftly and collected several Guinness World Records.

Multiplayer success is heavily dependent on actual cooperation and communication. Unless you are playing in the solo mode, your success is dependent on your ability to communicate effectively with your squad. 

You need to cooperate to compete, especially in the ranked-mode. If you choose the wrong circle rotation, your entire squad dies. This adds another dimension to the multiplayer gameplay, as PUBG is a very tactically-oriented battle royale game with a ruthless nature.   

Due to the fact that the basic game mechanics work perfectly, such as random circle placement and loot distribution, squad play is balanced and there is no overwhelmingly powerful strategy to make your team win each match. If you follow PUBG esports for a while, you see that successful teams survive longer than other teams and have an average number of kills each round. Consistency is the key. 

Matchmaking is mainly regional. There is no level-based matchmaking, resulting in situations, where players who play for the first time fight players who have their 10.000th game. It’s no fair competition, but this is the nature of PUBG. You have to be able to tolerate a lot of beatings until you become a decent player. But even then, frustration remains a persistent companion that won’t leave. 

At least PUBG didn't stagnate so far, so there are constant changes for improvement. 

Variety 

Again, there is no story line in PUBG. Just bare knuckle gameplay. Thus, it somehow lacks depth. Nevertheless, the development team offers a significant amount of variety to the players, keeping the game interesting and engaging. 

Several different maps enable a diverse battle royale experience. There are 9 maps in total, whereas 8 of them are integrated into the weekly map rotation, which is a relatively new feature that allows players to play on their favorite map more often. There is another map in the making.

PUBG also provides different play modes, such as Team Deathmatch, Events, and Training. Find an overview in this article. 

There are many different weapons, equipment and vehicles, which are the necessary tools in order to survive the fierce battle for the chicken dinner. If you are flexible as a player, you will have a variety of options at hand.

Lastly, a large variety of skins for weapons, vehicles, parachutes, and characters are obtainable in the game. You either unlock these items through playing or through purchasing items in the store. If you buy a season pass, you will get various objectives, to level up much quicker, thus, unlocking more skins and items. 

All in all, there is a great variety of different game elements, which enrich the gaming experience and encourage players to remain loyal to PUBG. But the most fancy skin items in the world can't make up for boring gameplay. Luckily, this isn't the case with PUBG.

Replayability 

The replayability of PUBG appears to be virtually limitless, as each game unfolds uniquely. With eight diverse maps and random circle placements, players are constantly faced with novel combat situations. 

As the circle continually closes, players must make swift tactical decisions, which could be a key factor in the game's enduring appeal. Questions like "Which side of the circle should we choose?" and "What's the optimal position?" fuel the excitement of those who like challenges and thrilling experiences. 

PUBG never gets boring, it might just become too difficult.

Another important factor, obviously, is the actual support of the game developers, which shape the future of the game. 

Support 

Looking at the various game improvements, bug fixes, and road maps over the years, you get the idea that the developers do consider the community in their management decisions. The game regularly gets updated, and for each new update, an extensive patch report is available as well as roadmaps for a long-term perspective. 

However, sometimes the relationship between the developers and the community is strained. This has been the case when the developers introduced bots to the game, back in April 2020. It was a controversial decision and received mixed reactions from the community. Some players appreciated the help for newcomers, others felt like deviating from the original PUBG experience. 

History repeats itself, as the developers have introduced another highly controversial game altercation. This happened with the June 2023 update, where a separate slot for tactical gear was introduced. 

From this point on you wouldn't have to sacrifice a weapon slot in order to carry an EMT kit, or a drone, among others, because there is a new, fixed additional main slot. By the beginning of each round, you choose your tactical gear, which will not be changeable throughout the rest of the game. 

Critics feared that everybody would make use of the blue chip detector, at least in solos, taking away the thrill of hide and seek for many players.

And this is what happened. The dev team received a backlash and eventually decided to remove the blue chip detector from the tactical gear. 

PUBG was saved. However, not all issues could have been fixed.

Technical performance

In the beginning, in 2017, PUBG used to be very buggy. There were too many technical issues that took a long time to be fixed. The game crashed frequently, which was very frustrating, especially when the game was in the final stages. 

Basically, it occurred at least once a day when you were playing the game. You were able to log back in, but by that time your squad members had reported you drowning in the sea, because your game crashed while driving a vehicle. 

Compared to back then, technical performance is okay now. Unfortunately, the game never reached an optimal level of performance. You still get stuck on corners when moving your character, the movement is far away from great. 

Well, at least most of the issues were fixed. Moving on to the last major point of the article.

Graphics

PUBG utilizes one of the best engines available, the Unreal Engine 4. It was created by Epic Games and released back in 2014. It supports a wide range of platforms, including PCs, consoles, and mobile devices.

However, the graphics in PUBG are not as visually appealing as in other comparable games, such as Fortnite and Apex Legends. In these games, graphics are colorful and vivid, whereas in PUBG, the surroundings are dull and the visuals are much murkier and gritty.

But complaining? Not any more.

Price

Since January 2022, PUBG has been free to play. 

The game is available on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Android, and iOS. Currently, there are no pay-to-win elements, and it most likely remains that way. If you want to support the developers, you can buy a season pass, which allows you to unlock new loot items, weapon skins, emotes, and other elements. There is a shop as well, where you can specifically buy fancy skins and items. 

Overall fun factor

Despite its often sobering potential, PUBG stands out among many other shooter games. The game remains an ultimate challenge, as no game is ever the same as the ones you played before. You achieve a sense of accomplishment once you get the chicken dinner, a sense which you hardly get in other shooters. 

Even after literally thousands of games, you get an adrenaline kick every now and then, especially when entering the final stages of an intense game. 

This kind of a thrilling experience is only possible when the stakes are high. Due to the unforgiving nature of the PUBG, stakes are in fact high, thus thrill is guaranteed. 

So to finally answer the article's question: yes, PUBG is (still) good. It is a very subjective answer, coming from somebody who invested thousands of hours into this game, but the games’ success can’t be denied.  

All seriousness aside, you can have a lot of fun with the game, hopefully for some years to come. 

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