You know, PUBG, right?
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds?
Battle royale?
Yeah, you know it. How could you not? It, along with Fortnite and H1Z1, has taken over the globe by storm. Every game is finding a way to incorporate battle royale, because it’s just that popular.
The Beginning
Let’s start this off by going back. All the way back to September 12, 2017. PUBG was quickly gaining popularity back then, even though it was an early access game. I saw some streamers playing it and figured, why not? It looks like fun.
For a while, it was fun. The only FPS I’d ever played on PC was Battlefield, so adapting to PUBG was…interesting. At first, I tried playing with a controller, but quickly realized that was not going to work. At all. The only option was just to log hours, and try and get better.
I found a couple friends to play the game consistently with and we started logging hours. Before I knew it, we were playing at an alarming rate. Like every night.
It was fun.
…and frustrating.
But hey, it’s early access, right? There are bound to be bugs.
It’s a small developer, so you can’t blame them…right?
The Problem
PUBG officially released for PC on March 23, 2017, and to date has over 50 million copies sold.
Despite being out for over a year and a half, and selling that many copies, the game still has performance issues.
PUBG is updated frequently. And I mean frequently. Every time you hop on to play, you better believe there is going to be an update that’s over 1 GB waiting for you. Hell, they even shut down the server twice a week for maintenance.
The problem is with each update, they fix one thing and break two others. And the performance still is sub-par.
It doesn’t matter how much fun I have playing a game, if I am consistently getting shot through walls or around corners, I’m going to get angry. To top it all off, the game also has a hacker problem, even with their anti-cheat system constantly banning players for cheating.
You know there is a problem with your game when a year and a half after release you have to launch a campaign called “#FixPUBG”.
Even with this campaign, there seems to be a lack of priority on optimization.
What is taking priority?
New maps. New guns. New skins. Loot boxes.
I’d take a better optimized game over a new map any day, especially over a new gun.
The game has turned into a crazy cluster of trying to keep relevant against the sea of other battle royale games, and actually fixing the game.
It’s Not All Bad
Okay, it has issues…but I’ve also logged over 200 hours into the game.
Which, at least for PC, is far more hours than any other game I’ve ever played (second up is Battlefield 1, with 100 hours).
The reason is, despite it having problems, it’s still fun. Nothing can compare to when you finally hit that sweet Kar98 shot, or get a squad wipe.
The game can truly produce some crazy, awesome moments. Especially with the smaller map, Sanhok.
Personally, I like PUBG’s visuals. It has a realistic vibe to it that I wouldn’t get in Fortnite. And, even though the new Call of Duty may be cool, I just can’t get over COD’s mechanics and overall feel. So, it’s PUBG for me. For better or worse.
Ending The Rant
To conclude my rant of PUBG, I hate it and I love it.
Some nights, I have no problems with it. When I get a kill it feels right. When I get killed, it feels right.
Then, other nights, it seems like the game is just out to get me. I lose close firefights that I shouldn’t of lose. I get shot around corners that shouldn’t be possible.
FYI, I’ve deleted and re-installed the game probably 4 or 5 times now.