There are a lot of games out there that try to create that urgent, adrenaline filled rush feel. Not many succeed as it is a very hard feat to pull off, however PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds manage to nail it right on the head.
Perhaps it has something to do with Brandon Greene’s involvement in the project. Known for essentially creating the Battle-Royale stlye game in Arma3 and H1Z1: King of the Hill, Battlegrounds seems to up the anty. For those who have yet to hear about the title, let me give you a brief desciprion of what to expect.
The game is a last man standing shooter. Similar to the way Hunger Games work, players are dropped into a huge, and I mean huge, 8×8 km island with no weapons or armor. Players are tasked with finding all their weapons and armor while managing to stay alive. This is all going on while the massive open-world map keeps getting smaller. This is because the game wants to bring all the players to a specific part of the map where the ultimate showdown will commence. And remember, while this is happening, there are well over 80+ players looking to hunt you down. Odds are you won’t make it to the final zone, but the adrenaline rush you feel if you get close is like no other.
Battlegrounds keeps its players on their feet by giving them a good amount of weapons to try out and a handful of cars to drive. Find all sorts of guns such as shotguns, pistols, and AKs scattered across the map. Guns can be modded if the necessary parts are found – attach a holo reticle, add a suppressor or extend your clip. The game is very generous to its players, once you have landed from the airplane jump, it should take you less than 5 minutes to find a weapon to defend yourself. A lot of similar games don’t always work like this, sometimes I would catch myself running around a big empty world without ever finding a weapon, only to get gunned down and restart the match. This is not the case for Battlegrounds.
Players can also join in with friends or go solo. I managed to play a couple of rounds with a random partner and I feel unless you know the person, it might be better sticking to solo. However, you could most definitely find the “meeting a stranger” dynamic awesome. But the solo feel is filled with curiosity, mystery and frightening tension as you have no clue “what’s around this corner”, or “what’s in that building”, etc.
The map is big, but it doesn’t feel oversized. This is most likely due to its unique areas. There will be towns, houses, hills, military bases, and much more. The first couple of rounds you will keep getting surprised with the environments. It gives the game a fresh feeling every time you start a match, which is a total bonus – especially with a game as repetitive as this.
I would also like to mention that the game looks very good as well. Since the Battlegrounds is running on the Unreal Engine 4, it will be accessible to most players, even those without the biggest and baddest Rigs. However, the game does suffer from severe performance issues. There are loads of times that the game just completely lags out; you could be running for two minutes and boop! back to where you were two minutes before. This happens to be the game’s biggest offender and to be honest, is a huge negative.
Despite the game’s major performance issues, the game is still fun. It’s a Battle Royale style game. There’s not much new to the genre as it is essentially the same as the others, however, due to the replayability, weapon variety, and overall fun factor – PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is still a massively fun game to play.
PlayerUnknown’s Battleground is available to purchase on Steam via Early Access.
