PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds isn’t giving up on performance optimization and cheater crackdowns, you’ll be glad to know. In its most recent Steam post, Bluehole says it’s helped performance by introducing “multiple areas where players gather before the match start” so that everyone’s not swarming together at the spawn point. Likewise, the studio says it’s “testing a new security (anti-cheat) measure that is still under development.”
Of course, if you scroll down the Steam page there, you’ll see a zillion people begging for PUBG to just region-lock China, as western gamers believe loverseas players using VPNs jack up the game – never mind the argument that Chinese players use hacks with impunity. As we’ve previously reported, PUBG is still in early access in China while partner Tencent sanitizes it for its government-approved release.
Players are currently reporting that the test server, at least, is now subject to a ping lock, which is blocking at least some players from joining servers if their ping is over a set limit, which appears to be around 175ms. It is not clear whether this is a tweak that will migrate to the live game.
In other PUBG news, GI.biz has an eye-opening interview with PUBG Corporation CEO Chang Han Kim, who explains the company’s drive to open up new offices and hiring pipelines in other countries, including The Netherlands, where Amsterdam will play host to a European studio. The eye-opening part is that Kim doesn’t seem to have a concrete plan for PUBG itself.
“We don’t really paint a clear picture in the beginning – we just run towards whatever the next goal is,” he says. “We see PUBG as an endlessly evolving online product. It’s not like we have a clear roadmap with 2.0 and 3.0. The current version, I want to say it’s flawless, but it still needs to be polished and enhanced. That will be our primary goal: polishing the current experience to provide the best game. Secondly, we want to enhance the competitive side of the game. We want to make sure the gameplay can be more competitive and enjoyable for players. We will spend the entire year focusing on those two goals.”
And finally, the studio has partnered with Extra Life for a $300,000 benefit for kids next week and vowed to donate $2 million in lockbox proceeds to charity.
