PUBG esports

A Brief Background

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (more commonly referred to as PUBG) is a multiplayer online battle royale game published and developed by the South Korean company Bluehole. Similar to other popular games on the esport scene, PUBG is also based on a mod created for ARMA 2 called “DayZ: Battle Royale” by Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene.

The whole concept of a Battle Royale game mode is heavily inspired by the Japanese film “Battle Royale” in which a group of students are transferred to an island and forced to fight to death by their government. The game was released for Microsoft Windows via the Steam platform, and it was initially released as an early access game in March 2017. The game was fully developed and released on December 20, 2017. Ever since, it has had several releases on different platforms, such as PS4 and Xbox One but also for mobile devices.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds sends up to 100 players to an island via air transfer and it’s up to all individual players to decide when to parachute onto the island where they instantly need to scavenge and loot buildings and smaller compounds for weapons and equipment that they need to use for surviving and eliminating their enemies. In early game, the map is very big, but the playable area is slowly decreasing over time.

Being outside the playable area will slowly inflict damage on players until they either die or manage to run into the playable area before all their health is lost. The game can be played in Solo, Duo or Squad mode with up to 4 players. The goal of the game is obviously to be the last one standing to get the win.

It’s a very intense and exciting game which will keep you on your toes from start to finish. It also forces players to be more cautious and strategic than in your general run-and-gun shooter game. The game was praised on its release, even though it was released with a list of irritating bugs and server issues, it still managed to get a really good traction via big twitch streamers that popularized the game very quickly.

How to Play

PUBG can be played both in a first and third person perspective, and this is a choice the players select in the menu while matchmaking. When it comes to the esport scene, first-person is always the choice since it’s more skill-based and doesn’t allow you to peek around corners without exposing yourself. In the beginning of each game, all the players are gathered in a lobby until the amount of players reaches  90-100, and then a 1 minute timer starts.

After this minute has passed, all players will be transported in an aircraft to finally select their dropping zone and parachute down onto the island. There’s several small towns and compounds that you can drop into, and this is recommended since weapons and equipment most often can be found inside buildings. The loots that are distributed across the map and are all randomly generated, so the same exact loot will never be found at the same spot.

The map does however have some locations which is very rich in loot and these locations are vastly popular to land in, but by doing so you are setting yourself up for an intense game early on, as you will most likely run into a lot of enemies all trying to scavenge the location. If you are confident, surviving a hot drop, this can be a good strategy since you’ll most likely end up being very well equipped early into the game.

If you die in the game you are out and will have to find another lobby to keep playing. However, if you are playing in duo or squad mode, you will first be “downed” before you die, and if your teammates can make it before you’ve bled out, they can resurrect you.

Weapon and equipment-wise you have a big arsenal of different types of weapons and accessories at your disposal, but as mentioned above, you will have to scavenge the different locations to find it. For example, there’s a couple of sniper weapons, assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, pistols and more. You can also find a lot of different types of attachments for your weapons such as scopes, magazines, muzzles and more that all gives your weapons that extra edge.

There’s also medpacks and other healing items that can be found, and these are very important for later in the game. You can also pick up armor that will help you sustain a larger amount of damage from incoming attacks before you die. If you don’t manage to gather good loot from the different compounds, you can keep an eye out for a plane that will fly over random locations and drop loot packages. These very often contain really good loot! But it’s good to be cautious, as the planes are really loud and easily spotted you can count on facing off other players on these drops. But the risk is very often worth it.

After a while the playable area of the map will start to decrease, making sure you are inside the playable area is very important since being outside of it will inflict damage to you over time until you either die or get inside the playable area again. There are a lot of strategies that can be played out with a bit of help from the circle.

Since you can open up your map to see where the playable area will be located, you can easily camp out different compounds or bridges if you know that they are on their way to be outside the zone. This is often referred to as Gatekeeping. During the course of the game, random locations of the map will also be highlighted in red and then bombed, so being in these zones can be extremely dangerous since you’re easily killed if you get hit.

In the end game of PUBG, the playable zones will get smaller and smaller, forcing all the players together and create a lot of encounters. While the zone starts decreasing in size, it’s a good idea to plan out where to go early on, as to either take high grounds or different buildings and compounds and weigh out the other players.

You never want to be in a too open field where you are very visible, as you can have enemy players closing in from all directions and cover can really be key in this game. This stage is often a camp fest, and people are likely to be stacked up on meds, so make sure that you are aware of your surroundings and have gathered enough meds to survive a couple of encounters. The last player or team to survive the final zones will be victorious and the famous quote “Winner winner, chicken dinner” will appear on the screen.

How to Watch

If you want to watch PUBG tournaments and matches there are some different channels you can go for. Obviously, the official PUBG twitch channel is a safe bet, since they broadcast a lot if different tournaments, charity events, top play recaps and more. The Electronic Sports League twitch channel is also a good source where you can find VOD’s of past events and tournaments.

• https://www.twitch.tv/playbattlegrounds – PUBG Official Twitch Channel.
• https://www.twitch.tv/esl_pubg/ – The Electronic Sports League Twitch Channel