I haven't handled a gun in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds for weeks. In that time I've played over 30 rounds, covered hundreds of in-game miles, and have spent more time hiding in bushes than Sean Spicer. Anyone familiar with Brendan Greene's one-time-Arma mod-turned-runaway megahit will know this is unusual. 

On the off-chance you're not, here's the deal: PUBG is a battle royale sim that parachutes players into an open-world island, has you scrambling for supplies and weapons, and pits you against up to 99 other combatants in bloody warfare till but one person remains. To complicate things further, an ever-enclosing forcefield intermittently shrinks the battlefield to expedite the fight. Spend long enough outwith and you'll expire. Spend long enough within and you'll likely be shot dead—assuming you don't waste everyone else first.

Achieving the latter armed with a S686 shotgun or an M416 assault rifle is no easy feat. Doing so barefisted is… well, nothing is impossible, right?

Before commencing my bare knuckled quest, I decided against enforcing hard rules. I was aware players better than I had shared similar experiences online—however my one and only chicken dinner to this point came as a result of my final foe inadvertently falling foul of the forcefield. When it was all said and done, I'd rather pitifully managed to run over one enemy with one of the game's yellow, Mr Bean-esque Dacia cars, and had offed another with an inordinately flukey grenade lob. With this in mind I decided to take whatever I could get. 

At first, perhaps expectedly, this wasn't a lot. I spent my first several rounds aimlessly sprinting and dying, dying and sprinting (in no particular order) in and out of buildings which, shy of being accompanied by a Benny Hill score, was almost comical. As I danced over well-placed M249s, full ammo clips, and Crossbows, I could almost hear opposite players screaming: What the fuck is this clown doing?!

I imagined their laughter as I charged at them, fists flailing, as if mimicking that one drunk uncle invariably capable of emptying a wedding dance floor to the tune of Eye of the Tiger. Even when I outsmarted foes, I failed. Sneaking up from behind, or getting the jump on my aggressors was swiftly superseded by being shot point blank between the eyes. Moe Greene got off lightly against my plight—and my boxing technique when given a fair chance left much to be desired (skip to 1.50 below).

After a handful of single barefisted kills in almost 20 rounds, it was clear my strategy needed a drastic overhaul. In his esteemed and enduring treatise on military tactics The Art of War, the Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu writes: "The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy." 

Which to me of course translates to: If you can't win, hide in the bushes. Hide in the long grass. Hide in the toilets. Hell, hide wherever you can't be spotted. 

And so I did. I hid in bushes:

I hid in toilets:

In the most literal act of trolling, I hid under bridges: 

And, in a Theresa May-like rush of blood to the head, I hid in wheat fields:

I became a shadow, an unknown, and, still too often literally, a ghost. I racked up hours of peaceful wandering, as I toured The Island unarmed and rarely unchallenged before being abruptly offed as the circle inevitably and resolutely shortened. 

I grew to understand what Gil Lawson was getting at when she suggested Battlegrounds' map gets more haunting as you play it, happening upon quaint nooks and crannies I hadn't previously realised existed—all the while becoming interminably frustrated by my inability to tuck my bloody legs beneath a bed frame or under a hedge or behind a parked car. 

Seriously, I reckon I put new meaning to the term 'trickshot' by way of the amount of times I was killed with one-shots to my overimposing appendages. 

Eventually, though, I got my break. The gods took pity on me and the lay of the ever-enclosing battleground fell in my favour. With every reduced arena came planes of rough, or conveniently situated shrubbery. I crawled for what felt like miles till it was just me and two others in the final squeeze. The Good, The Bad, and The Suspicious Bush. 

Explosions tear through the otherwise tranquil forest. The two active fighters exchange gunfire. I daren't move a muscle for fear of my inflatable tube man legs being spotted. 

And then boom! The soldier at the far end is brought to their knees and suddenly it's one-on-one. 

I'm torn. Do I get up, run and hope for the best? Or do I lay in wait and hope that the now fallen third party shaved enough health off the remaining foe for me to stage a one-punch sneak attack?

I can't decide. Maybe I should move ever so slightly to the left and—BLOODY HELL WHY AM I SO BAD AT THIS GAME?!!!! 

A bullet to the head and my indecision and cowardice has cost me, which feels like a fitting end to my bare-fisted saga. Ah, well at least I've got my memories. 

Now if someone could please pass me that shotgun, that'd be grand.

When I spoke to PUBG's Brendan Greene a few weeks ago, he told me the promises he made at the beginning of the runaway hit's development regarding launch dates "came from naivety on [his] part". Bluehole has now stressed that the revised "Q4 2017" target is still on-track, but that weekly and monthly updates will be sidestepped in order to maintain a "high standard of quality."

By way of this Steam Community update post, Bluehole says that changes to the game's schedule aim to improve how it as a team works on the game and how it continues to set "realistic" expectations for players. 

"Until the official release of the game, we will not have our scheduled weekly or monthly patches rolling out as often as before," reads the post. "We’ve found internally that being rushed to finish certain features, and having shorter QA test time between pushing updates caused more issues than it solved in regards to maintaining a high standard of quality. We want to put our best content out, and ensure that everything we do is making the game more enjoyable with every update."

Bluehole continues to say that while weekly patches may fall by the wayside from hereon, the developer will use the time to test for "significantly" longer periods. In turn it hopes to produce more polishes and accomplished updates.

The post adds: "Again, we would like to assure you all that we are still on-track to release our game as per our updated timeline, and we want to emphasize to you that we are not winding down the development, or complacent. We have a lot of work to do, and we want this game to be released with as many fun, rich, enjoyable features and mechanics as possible. Our team will continue to be hard at work, and we are always listening to your feedback."

As exclusively revealed during the PC Gaming Show at this year's E3, the ability to vault, climb, and dive through windows is coming to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Now, one of the game's programmers has shared some work-in-progress footage that shows how the new animations are coming along.

What might seem like a small addition to PUBG has scope to grossly alter strategy as it stands. Being able to throw yourself over and therefore behind walls while being pursued, for example, could mark the difference between life and death; while snipers stand to access better vantage points by reaching highers up nests.

As you can see there, players will be able to stall vaults mid-animation which will definitely come in handy when facing off against the aforementioned opportunist snipers. 

Again, the above is marked as a 'work-in-progress'. And while we don't as yet know exactly which update vaulting, climbing and window-diving are coming to PUBG, there's still no sign of this ultra-cool maneuvering:

The highlight of my Battlegrounds career was the time my squad held out in the underground military bunker against multiple enemies with only crossbows. It wasn't some zany challenge we had set for ourselves—just an incredibly shitty string of loot luck. Yet, amid the twangs of crossbow strings snapping, we persevered. One squad retreated sporting a few new feathers in their caps, and we eradicated another one entirely. I'll never forget the flood of "oh my god" and laughter when we emerged from the bunker, stole a car, and actually made it away with our lives. That was months ago, but every time we play I call us the Crossboyz.

It might not have been a moment as gif-worthy as jumping a bike into a house's second story window and killing its occupants, or those people who discovered that hiding in overturned cars is a surprisingly viable tactic. But Battlegrounds is so damn good at churning out an endless stream of small anecdotes just like these, and so many of them are hilarious.

That's why we want to hear your best Battlegrounds stories. Regale us with tales of bold heroics, of insane car stunts, or the clever tactics that produced surprising outcomes. We want them all. Share your stories in the comments below and we'll round up our favorites and shower you with glory next week.

The internet is vast and full of streams. The prevalence of YouTube and Twitch ensure that more gaming silliness is being captured and shared than ever. People are still doing amazing work with Source's film making tools and The International 7 produced its share of amusing moments. Here are some of the videos and gifs that tickled us this week.

Rule breaker

An0nymoose, the creator of demented videos like We Like To Party continues to do fine work.

Better luck next time

Via nicky-and-skittles on r/gaming.

That crowd reaction

Valve announced a new game at The International 7 to... let's say a mixed response.

Also at The International

One of Dota 2's most loved players takes on an AI at The International 7. The contender walkouts at 1:36 are perfect. Head to 7:32 to watch the actual contest.

Meanwhile, in War Thunder

Graceful tank action via genericc.

Monster hunter pro skater

Our favourite Witcher 3 mod of the week.

How to stick a landing

Early Access battle royale shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is still quickly climbing the charts in terms of sales and player counts, but also on the rise are controversy, complaints, and negative reviews on Steam. Along with no small amount of hubbub over PUBG's policy of banning players for perceived stream-sniping and team-killing (even when someone had a seemingly good reason for the latter), the introduction of paid loot crates for cosmetic items continues to be a big point of contention.

The community backlash is no surprise: the idea of selling items in an unfinished Early Access game typically results in a wave of unhappiness from gaming communities (see Ark's paid DLC expansion). There's also the fact that Brendan Greene stated a few months ago that no monetization would occur during PUBG's Early Access period. Anytime a system goes from free to paid (after launch, Greene has said there will "probably" be no more free crates at all) there's bound to be a lot of unhappiness.

Greene explained his turnaround on a paid crate system for Early Access, saying in the August update post: "While our intention was and still is to add the full feature to the game when we move into actual release, we do need to test it prior to launch and at Early Access so that it is stable and ready to be fully introduced to our community."

For the most part, the community seems unmoved by Greene's explanation. While it's nothing like the dramatic review-bombing we've seen with other games, PUBGs recent Steam review score has slipped from Mostly Positive to Mixed in the past 30 days, which is a change from about 75% positive reviews to around 65%. While many of the reviews express positive opinions about the game itself, most of these recent thumbs-downs cite the paid crates as the main reason.

"Although I love the core game, I can't recommend it to anyone now as the developer has broken one of the most paramount promises made during EA," says one Steam reviewer, who has played 135 hours of PUBG. "They said no paid content until release, now they're introducing keys, needed to open crates, which are purchased with real money, akin to CSGO."

"Don't let BlueHole pull the same things other early access devs have," reads another review. "Even though this game is wonderful and has the potential to be a staple in PC gaming, we have to let them know we won't accept these practices."

"Fun and addicting game but I'm jumping on the boycott bandwagon with the way they are going about loot crates / cosmetic items," reads a review from a player with nearly 90 hours of play. "If they added the ability to receive the same loot by grinding i would tell everyone to buy it."

On the PUBG subreddit, one of the highest upvoted posts, published two weeks ago, is titled 'JUST SAY NO to real-money keys."

"I don't think people getting these things are getting an advantage. I don't think my gameplay is affected by other people having them, or me not having them," the post reads. The poster laments that unlocking the schoolgirl outfit they want would require a potentially sizable investment of cash due to crates containing a single item, not a set, and the random nature of the crate's contents allow for finding duplicates instead of the costume you might be looking for.

"I know some of you play games like CSGO or whatever and think a system like this is reasonable because you're used to it, but it's not," the post continues. "In those games, it's also possible to get items for free. In this game, it will not be possible to get anything for free." (Emphasis theirs).

There are currently some 2,500 comments on the post, which has over 14,000 upvotes. Not everyone agrees, mind you: some point out that microtransactions are voluntary, and no one needs to actually buy keys for the crates. Others fear the crate system will lead, as it did for CS:GO, to a swarm of gambling sites, bot accounts, and scammers hoping to cash in on valuable items.

One redditor is completely fine with microtransactions, even in Early Access, and sounds perfectly willing to spend money—just not like this. "I'm all for selling cosmetics," the comment reads. "I'm completely against selling cosmetics using an RNG slot machine approach like crates & keys. Simply sell me the full outfit for $15 please."

And, for some who haven't yet bought PUBG, this controversy may be resulting in some hesitation about purchasing it. "I've been watching this game and was planning on potentially buying it after its release," one comment reads, "but here I'm seeing the birth of the usual EA pattern.

"Everyone was hailing this as 'EA done right'," the commenter continues, "but I'm skeptical, as that's what they always say."