Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds is the success story you hear of once in a lifetime (well, twice thanks to Fortnite). A game based on previous mods that were created by Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene made into a fully realised (I’M GETTING BACK TO THIS…) Steam game. And, before you know it, it’s one of the hottest games ever released.
WHAT IS IT?
Using MANY elements of the film Battle Royale and expanded into a standalone game under Greene’s creative direction, the game sees up to one hundred players parachute onto an island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others while avoiding getting killed themselves (or run over by idiot teammates, Digi!). The available safe zone closes rapidly to force players to continue combat encounters until only one team is alive.
BUT THERE IS A LOT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT
“But Chesh, how much have you even played this game to make such remarks” I hear you say, and that would be 945 hours played. So indulge me if I want to rant about a game I enjoy so much but could be SO much better and WAY less greed driven.
Some of these complaints aren’t due to the developer, but the majority are. I can’t help but call in to question a number of practices and methods to liberate money from the fans of the game for “cool” aesthetic upgrades and skins, the type that usually you would expect to play and level for.
LOOT BOXES FOR AESTHETIC ITEMS SHOULD BE REWARDS
Holy crap, Bluehole. How to piss off the MAJORITY of your fanbase in one foul action. Introduce loot boxes (YAY!) but then after a few months, introduce NEW boxes that cost $2.50 each to unlock. Okay, that doesn’t sound THAT bad, right? what if I were to tell you that when you “buy” an in-game loot box with the points you earn from playing the game (Balle Points), you have a random chance to get one of eight crates, a whopping FIVE of these require the $2.50 keys. The first crate costs 700BP, then 1400, then 2800 and so on. This resets each week back to 700, but the percentage that you will get a locked crate is hilariously horrible.
Better yet, how much do you expect to make from your $2.50 investment if you want to cash out? Less than ten cents USD. Before you jump in and tell me how this is all stupid and how companies need to make money, I’m fine with that on a game I haven’t already paid FULL PRICE for. But in this instance, you’re giving players no incentive to play the game. You’re not rewarding players at all, you’re showing them how massive your greed is!
WE ADDED A NEW MAP AND REWARD SYSTEM. THE MAP IS FREE, THE REWARD SYSTEM WILL COST YOU
AWESOME! A new smaller map for faster and more stressful gameplay is straight up my… wait, the levelling system requires a “Battle Pass”? OH, BUT it has a SWEET pink jacket! Well, that’s what I thought anyway until I bought the pass and saw that the jacket THAT YOU LEVEL FOR has a timer. Yeah, you have it for 30 days only and then, POOF! Gone.
The Battle Pass System was a great concept and I was willing to put my money into it and get “rewarded”, but all I got was a prison outfit and disappointment. I wish I was kidding, but that ten smackeroos feel as though it was set on fire, extinguished by a clown throwing up and then flushed straight down the toilet. You know what I could have done with that ten dollars? Bought a few packs of Magic: the Gathering and maybe crack some awesome cards.
Essentially you completed missions to earn BP and experience so that you could earn BP and experience modifiers to gain those faster, or for some unique skin items that you can use for aesthetic purposes. But as mentioned above, some of the coolest items were time sensitive and vanished a few days after the event was over. So who is the biggest jackass here? Probably those of us who blindly shelled out for a stupid battle pass. Now let’s be clear, you can STILL play the game and new map without the battle pass, you just won’t earn the levelling items associated with the premium pass.
A FULLY RELEASED GAME, THAT’S STILL IN BETA.
I wish I could tell you that PUBG was a full game, but it really isn’t. Despite being a full release game, the physics engine screws up from time to time. Vehicles currently drive like you’re hydroplaning. Many of the parachute drops fail to show other people dropping in your area. And, on one of the maps, your vehicle will hit hidden terrain out of nowhere. Thus, sending your vehicle tumbling into the sky or exploding for no good damn reason.
Early access on Steam began March 2017 with a full release December 20th, 2017. But, let’s be honest here, there were some major problems as above that signal that many issues still plague the released game, not including “battle eye” error issues. A Battle Eye error seems to be the anti-cheat system that was implemented. It was made to tackle the massive number of players upon release that was using mods and cheats to steal kills. However, the anti-cheat system sometimes causes issues and crashes the game. Sometimes, ending your session even if you were still alive.
These issues angered a large part of the user base. As even before the game hit a full release on steam, PUBG was already being run as an esports game by Bluehole.
BATTLEFIELD 4 WAS BETTER
I have so many fond memories of “riding in choppers with bois” (thanks Jiggsy<3) and cruising around in tanks, getting amazing kills and awesome thrills. I can’t help but feel that the evolution of PUBG has stunted, that by now we should have seen tanks and helicopters rumble around certain big maps. Rocket launchers and APCs with turrets, but we are still waiting for that to even be mentioned by Bluehole, I am now sad.
IN CONCLUSION
Bluehole have a long way to go until PUBG is “the game everyone needs”. The gritty realism included speaks to many older players, but not to the “candy generation” who will spend any amount to get certain skins they want. But who is the game ACTUALLY setting its sights on? I play it far too much. I do LOVE the game. But, there are many issues that need to be addressed. And, this is a major reason Fortnite is kicking PUBG in the charts as much as I don’t want to admit it.
RANT OVER.
