PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) isn’t quite the genre-leading giant it was back in 2017, where it led the charge in a genre so successful it spawned a whole busses full of imitators, including Fortnite’s Battle Royale later in the same year. Still, it’s been getting steady updates, and its move to a free-to-play model in 2022 has kept it trucking along nicely bar some major problems with cheaters.
Krafton’s latest 2024 roadmap video includes a host of announced changes, including the very exciting possibility that you’ll be able to dig a hole. Maybe. As part of a plan to introduce “vibrant gameplay experiences”, which I assume are preferable to dull gameplay experiences, Krafton says that destructible environments are coming to PUBG.
“This year, we aim to introduce a ‘destructible area’. The idea began with the thought that an interactive world could open up a wider range of strategies and tactics,” a Krafton dev says, using the example of breaking open a door and chucking a grenade through it. A video plays of a chicken-dinner hopeful digging a small hole with a pickaxe. However, “discussions are still ongoing in various aspects,” and while Krafton says the update will be coming in April, it’ll only be “to some extent.”
Other exciting notes include gunplay adjustments (with public testing) every two months, “action-oriented” features including a potential zipline, new game modes, better bots, improved matchmaking, and—most excitingly—user-generated content (UGC), alongside an upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.
“We are preparing an UGC mod to grant a high level of freedom to users … our goal is to ensure PUBG remains loved for so long by providing an environment where you can create your own world according to your rules.”
Krafton also dedicated a substantial portion of its update to addressing how it’ll be handling cheaters, following its deployment of AI models to help cut rulebreakers off at the source last year—it claims that the “situation has been stabilised now”, though it admits that its new anti-killjoy tech still has “significant room for further enhancement, as the number of cheaters is still substantial.” While Krafton’s focus has been on the game’s ranked mode, it intends to extend the (soon-to-be-longer) arm of the law to other modes as well.
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