P18C: The P18C is an autofire pistol that can chew up opponents at close to medium range. Perhaps, it's the most deadly pistol in PUBG . If players are having a difficult time finding a decent arsenal during a match, then this pistol is a good sidearm to start with and hold o

Unless you are a top tier player in shooting games, dropping further away from "hot" areas is probably the safest course of action for survival. This will allow a player to find strong or average gear and weapons without the threat of an enemy player's pressure. There is one main technique that can keep players away from the hot zones of P

After its tremendously underwhelming and buggy launch, it first attempted to split into two separate games, Project Windless swapped developers a time or two, and then reconciled, rebooted, and rebranded itself as an unremarkable free-to-play battle royale title. Players that managed that hang on during those four grueling years clearly deserve some sort of me

Another strategy that can help newer players to survive is using the vehicles to set up base in the center of the circular arena. Using the rapid pace of the vehicles can allow you time to set up a powerful stronghold against enemy players. Not only does it allow for a strong base to defend it can skip the tedious and life-threatening task of chasing the circle and its p

Needless to say, with the power and reputation of Activision's golden child behind it, it was practically impossible for Blackout to fail. It's definitely one of the more well optimized and frequently updated battle royale titles on the list, and those merits alone do a great deal to carry it. Nevermind the fact that it's a blast to p

In 2012, a modder by the name of Dean Hall released a mod for ARMA 2 called "DayZ." Its extreme survival focus being the result of Hall’s desire to create an experience that would cause its players to seriously consider their surroundings and survival needs, rather than just blindly reacting. As it turned out, many gamers out there were hungry for this new kind of gaming experience, and DayZ released to massive praise and popularity. So like ARMA 2 before it, DayZ also attracted a healthy modding community, and it wasn’t long before some members of that community starting trying to adapt the game’s survival elements for pvp-focused experiences. It wasn’t until a year later though, in 2013, that PlayerUnknown would make his debut and deliver one of the most influential DayZ mods to date, "PlayerUnknown’s Battle Royale."

Despite being in early-access, PUBG is already an overwhelming success. It regularly dethrones League of Legends as the most streamed game on Twitch. It will be seeing a console release on the Xbox One by year’s end, and it seems to have cemented the battle royale arena as a fully-fledged genre in gaming. Major studios are already taking notice, with games like Grand Theft Auto Online and Fortnite adding battle royale game modes of their own. From starting as a mod-of-a-mod to serving as the basis for several major games, the journey this genre has undertaken thus far is already quite incredible. This is really just the beginning though! Who else out there is looking forward to seeing where these games go next?

Ever since it parachuted onto the scene, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has been proving itself to be a force to be reckoned with in the gaming landscape. It’s a meteoric rise not seen since Minecraft made its early access debut back in 2009. With thousands of streamers broadcasting their skills and new players jumping in every day, its popularity is well on its way to rivaling that of the sandbox juggernaut. Where did this kind of game even come from though? New styles of gameplay don’t just spawn from the ether; they all have their origins. In the case of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and the battle royale arena, it all started with a minor PC shooter called ARMA 2.

One of the most important tools in PUBG are the variety of vehicles spread throughout the map. A player utilizing a vehicle successfully provides an unparalleled tool for mobility. This can make even the longest treks towards the circular a trivial and relatively safe jour

In a May 2017 interview with PCGamesN , Brendan Greene, the man behind the "PlayerUnknown" handle, discussed his initial inspiration for the mod. "I’d seen what Survivor GameZ did with DayZ," Greene said. "[…] It was a great event but I couldn’t play in it because I wasn’t a streamer. I thought: ‘Well, I want to do this. I want to play this’. I had a DayZ mod server that I had scripted lots of stuff into and decided I wanted to make a mod. I just thought, ‘Right, let’s try and make a battle royale mod’, and the genre was born." In its initial form, PlayerUnknown’s Battle Royale pitted 25 players against one another in a shared starting area with a cornucopia of gear lying before them. Once the countdown reached zero, the race for life and loot was on! Fun fact: one of the most iconic mechanics of the mod and its successors, the constantly shrinking circle, arose due to Greene’s skill-level as a programmer. "The ever decreasing circle – I couldn’t program squares like it is in the Battle Royale movie," Greene told Rock, Paper, Shotgun in a July 2017 interview . "The code for doing squares that shrink, I just couldn’t do it because I wasn’t a very good coder, right? So I [changed] it to an ever-decreasing circle that sort of moved around inside itself, because that’s how I could do it."