Bluehole and PLAYERUNKNOWN (Brendan Greene) have been hard at work on their latest patch for PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS . The Early Access Month 2 Update brings a new vehicle, a new weapon, client performance optimization and much more. The update is scheduled to go live on May 25 5PM KST/1AM PDT/8AM UTC and is expected to take approx. 1 hour to compl

Where Erangel's wide open fields and mountains tend to favor medium to long-range combat (ie, assault rifles and snipers), the valleys and tight corridors of Miramar make close-range combat the more preferred way to dispatch enemies and survive thanks to shotguns and S

Even though I've only put a few hours into Battlegrounds at this point since jumping in, I can already see it as a title that I'll more than likely come back to in the coming months. With rounds that usually extend for me around 20-30 minutes (if I don't get killed right from the get-go), the game has drawn in me like few others ever have, much less any type of survival sim or Early Access game before it, and most of that comes down to its incredibly streamlined sense of survival at play, and how it draws players together in a fight to the finish. To say Battlegrounds is exhilarating is an understatement: even in its earliest state right now, I've kept coming back to the game night after night because it's gotten my blood pumping like few other games have in the past few ye

Outside of the game's more randomized elements, as a shooter PUBG 's combat feels breakneck and challenging. Coming from the lineage of military sims like Arma , death in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds comes quickly as it only takes a few shots to take down most players (or potentially only one with a well-aimed headshot). This quick time-to-kill though comes down on both sides, as pubg taego Drop spots employs several elements to keep the combat and gunplay as unpredictable as the environments. That aspect of the combat comes through bullet drop and the varied amount of weapon attachments and upgrades that can be tailored to specific players' preferences, whether they opt for being more efficient at long range or close range, and m

Originating from Greene's work on developing mods such as DayZ: Battle Royale (originating from ARMA 2 and its subsequent DayZ ), Battlegrounds ultimately became a sort of mix of the attributes that Greene wanted to take from survival games - the emphasis on player choice and preservation - while refining some of its weaker points. Specifically, Greene's focus on making large maps that would be difficult to pin down exact strategies from game-to-game play a large part of what Battlegrounds has turned out to be, while item randomization ensures that no match plays out exactly the same as it did bef

Specifically, Greene clarified with the game's new cosmetic crates that players will be limited in the number of crates that can be received each week, as crate prices will be reset every Monday. Players will (currently) be limited to six crates per week, while trading and distribution of the crates will be free through the Steam Marketplace. Greene also provided some images of new items that can be found in the two new free-to-open crates coming with the Monthly Upd

The next Monthly Update will also introduce the game's first new paid cosmetic items through a "crate and key system," which Greene took time in the community forum to address. Due to some of the negative reaction towards implementing the system, Greene expressed that the introduction and testing of the new paid cosmetics will "serve as the foundation of a healthy economy after launch," and will aim to "benefit all players - both who are willing to pay and who are not willing to pay for vanity items." However, Greene also addressed that "our messaging wasn't clear" in terms of implementing the new system, and added that the team will "try to communicate better moving forwa

A great addition to GTA 5 was first person mode, turning the more action-oriented segments of the game into a first-person shooter. Personally, I can find third-person or over the shoulder gameplay a little harder to navigate when caught in a firefi

Starting off each round, players are flown to the battlegrounds in a huge aircraft carrier that takes a random path across the huge maps and gives players the chance to jump out and parachute to their starting location. This moment alone marks a big point where players will have to strategize, whether they decide to jump from the plane early and (usually) wind up in a bloodbath of other players trying to scrounge for weapons and ammo, or taking more remote paths to other parts of the island that could make survival easier, but potentially put the player at a disadvantage as far as outpacing some of the game's environmental hazards, such as supply drops and random bombing r

In the hours that I've played PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds , most of those fears have gone away from the start. That isn't to say Battlegrounds goes completely against the grain when it comes to most Early Access survival sims - there are bugs a-plenty and what's actually available in the game for players is a bit sparse at the moment (though frequent updates are regulating that). However, I find what PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds does best so far is capture what I like the most about survival games - that intoxicating stress of fighting for your life - while stripping away almost all of the mechanics that I often clash with in the ge