PUBG or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is the new happening

If you have been checking Twitter and Insta feed, logging into Twitch or browsing through PC-gaming platform Steam or Facebook you would have definitely heard of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG. PUBG, with the hashtag #pubg, is a gaming force and was the first to achieve over two million concurrent players (on stream), with the numbers are going up and strong. PUBG also won the "Outstanding Achievement in Multiplayer" at the 2018 D.I.C.E Awards.

PUBG, the brainchild of Brendan Greene, pits 100 players against each other in an ever-shrinking playing field. The task, like in Hunger Games, is to be the last one standing. Each player needs to scavenge for guns, ammo and other items by searching through buildings in this survival masterpiece.

It’s been the most played game on Steam every single day for months, with concurrent players usually standing around four times higher than any other game on the platform.

The game was released for Microsoft Windows (via Steam's early access beta program) on March 2017, with a full release on December 20. The game was then released by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One via its Xbox Game Preview program. After the game was released by Tencent Games in China, two mobile versions (for both Android and iOS) were released in early 2018. By March 2018, the Windows version had sold over thirty million copies and held a peak concurrent player count of over three million, an all-time high on Steam, while the Xbox One version sold over five million copies.

PUBG, although not perfect by any means, was a big boon for Xbox owners looking for an exclusive console game release. Now, of course, the question is when a PUBG PS4 release is going to happen. Meanwhile, PUBG mobile works as a relief for most with almost similar features as in the console.

A nifty feature is the “squad” play, where you get to team up with three other players to destroy others on the battle field (area). You can communicate with your team with a mic or using inbuilt messaging. The players can also ravage the scene as a solo player or as a 1-man-squad.

“As it’s going to be an exclusive title on Xbox One for some time, we’d like to focus on completing the Xbox One PUBG for now,” says Chang Han Kim, the CEO of PUBG Corporation to InvenGlobal. “If we have the opportunity, the final goal would be to launch the title on every platform.”

"We definitely do have plans for other platforms," adds Kim in a Business Insider interview in June 2017. "But no details have been finalised yet."

YouTube and other sites like IGN have a lot of PUBG guides, gameplay videos and even live gameplay —with excited audience. However, with this kind of popularity and new updates and map releases, hackers have been spawning with cheats and cheating programs. Developers of the popular battle royale game have released a statement updating players on the status of their anti-cheating efforts in the game.

The update was posted on Steam and details the arrest by Chinese authorities of 15 individuals who were suspected of developing and selling hack programs for PUBG. As a result of the arrests, the suspects have been fined over $5 million.

“I’d like PUBG to become a universal media franchise based on the game. We want to take part in diverse industries including eSports, movies, drama, cartoons, animation, and more. In fact, we received a couple of lovely calls from a number of developers in Hollywood and Netflix. Our dream is to build a new game-based culture through various ways like this, and have the lead of that culture,” says Kim in the InvenGlobal interview.

Most of the players hope that a PUBG culture will hit soon. There is also great expectation on the upcoming movies and other PUBG franchise, considering the brilliance of the game(s). PUBG sure is the big happening now!