PUBG Corp·Released Dec 20, 2017·Single player
PUBG: Battlegrounds is a battle royale shooter that pits 100 players against each other in a struggle for survival. Gather supplies and outwit your opponents to become the last person standing.
Now free to play, PUBG: Battlegrounds' unique focus on massive zones and realistic simulation remain a lot of fun, even if its novelty wore off years ago.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds manages to differentiate itself from its battle royale progeny with its more tactical spin on the formula, even with its obvious lack of presentational prowess. While its grounded approach can be brutal at first, if you take the time to immerse yourself in its stress inducing battles, you'll find yourself involved in epic engagements that will have you sharing your successes – and failures – with anyone willing to listen. It may not be the king anymore, but PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds still more than deserves a place at the top table.
PUBG v1.0 on Xbox One runs smoothly, features three vastly different maps, and includes a ton of weapons, gear, and items to use in the deadliest online game. Its unique brand of tense, realistic shooting mixed with slow-paced tactical combat manages to stay fresh and exciting even after hundreds of matches. It makes coming back for another attempt at a "chicken dinner" victory hard to resist.
PUBG takes the tradition of big-map survival games like DayZ and compresses it into digestible, 3-to-30-minute sprints that are reliably scary and low-key.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has taken the military-sim gameplay popularized by games like ARMA and DayZ, boiled it down to its most exciting parts, and streamlined it into quick and accessible rounds of pure, hassle-free, survival-based action.
[PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds] is best when one round you're a Ghillie-suited assassin and the next you're a struggling nobody with a gun you've never seen before. When you aren't at either extreme, the highs and lows of play can begin to even out and round after round can begin to blend together.
In spite of technical flaws and the dreary mirror it holds up to us, Battlegrounds in consistently enjoyable and surprising. There is a reason why it is the battle royale game.
Despite glaring technical flaws, PUBG emerges as the most thrilling battle royal game to date.
The Battle Royale genre gets its first definitive success.
Playable, watchable, intense, and enjoyable gameplay makes it easy to see how this battle royale phenomenon took off
Battlegrounds manages to exist within the crowded shooter genre in an unfinished state, and feel both fresh and creatively complete. From its early access launch on March 23 to its official launch today, Dec. 20, its creators have had nine months to repair, polish and expand on their baby. That the most substantial updates have been improved server performance, vaulting and car horns speaks to the confidence Greene and his squad have in the game's foundation.
