May 12, 2018

Fortnite and PUBG are so big, gaming headset sales are through the roof

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

Gaming headset sales have skyrocketed - and it's down to the battle royale craze.

The phenomenal popularity of Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has seen massive 185 per cent increase in revenue at Turtle Beach, which accounts for nearly 46 per cent of the gaming headset market share.

Turtle Beach boss Juergen Stark told Variety battle royale has fuelled a surge in popularity for his company's headsets - a surge so big it will spend more than $4m this quarter on air-freighting new stock into the US.

May 10, 2018

Sanhok Testing Now Live

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - MephieKim

Hi friends,

Sanhok testing is now live on the “PUBG: Experimental Server.” If you own a copy of PUBG, you can find the Experimental Server in your Steam library right now.

Below is the full schedule for this round of testing. For information on what’s changed since Sanhok’s last appearance on test servers, check out the patch notes. For the backstory on Sanhok’s new name, go here.

SANHOK TESTING WINDOW

OPENS: May 10, 7pm PDT / May 11, 4am CEST / May 11, 11am KST
CLOSES: May 14, 4am PDT / May 14, 1pm CEST / May 14, 8pm KST

We're aware of the friends list not working correctly and are working to resolve this.
The friends list issue has now been resolved.

May 10, 2018

Playerunknown s Battlegrounds starts lobbing apples around Sanhok tonight

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

OI OI! MEET YOU AT THE HOTEL BAR, LADS!

The stag & hen weekend banter of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds will enter fruity new heights tonight when the new 4x4km Southeast Asian map, now named Sanhok, enters public testing. Having previously required a key, it’ll launch in the new Experimental Client overnight (at 3am UK time on Friday; 7pm Pacific on Thursday), a little more polished than before – and with the new ability to pelt each other with apples while in the lobby. Scrumping? Foodfights? Classic banter. Oi OIII heads up you wankers. (more…)

May 10, 2018

'Going up against Fortnite and PUBG is just incredibly hard'

Laser League: World Arena

There's never really been an easy time to debut an online-focussed multiplayer game on Steam, but the past few months have suggested there's never really been a more brutal one. PUBG and Fortnite rule all, leaving high profile casualties such as Lawbreakers in their wake while many more smaller games have suffered. And into that, roll7 - the developer of the brilliant OlliOlli, its sequel and Not a Hero - has made its first ever multiplayer game in the future sports title Laser League.

"Well, it's incredibly difficult - I don't think we're going to shy away from that fact," says roll7 director Simon Bennett as the game emerges from Early Access on PC and makes its debut on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. "I think one plus we have coming to console is that it's a great local multiplayer game. We're hoping that people latch onto that fact as well. But ultimately we've invested a lot into getting that online side of it working, and for us as a developer getting the publishing and commercial aspect of it to work. Actually getting players to it, we're working with publisher 505 to do that... We've seen so many games that just can't get that concurrent user base."

"So we're adding a Battle Royale mode," jokes creative director John Ribbins.

May 9, 2018

Sanhok Testing Patch Notes #3

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - MephieKim

_____________________________________________________

PATCH UPDATE #1: 5/10/2018
Added improvements to the holo sight (in gameplay section of the patch notes)
Added two more known issue

_____________________________________________________

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to Sanhok (the map formerly known as “Codename: Savage”). Going forward, testing will be open to everyone who owns a copy of PUBG. Just download the “PUBG: Experimental Server” once it appears in your library.

We’ve still got some work to do before Sanhok is ready for live servers, so please give us the most detailed feedback you can! We couldn’t do this without you.

Enjoy!
PUBG Corp.

SANHOK TESTING WINDOW

OPENS: May 10, 7pm PDT / May 11, 4am CEST / May 11, 11am KST
CLOSES: May 14, 4am PDT / May 14, 1pm CEST / May 14, 8pm KST

AVAILABLE QUEUES

Both TPP and FPP are available in all queues
NA, EU, AS : Solo/Duo/Squad

PATCH NOTES

This map is now called Sanhok! More information about how we chose this name can be found here.

Gameplay

We’ve applied the same weapon balance and item spawn changes from the current PUBG live servers (see patch notes #12)
We’ve adjusted item spawn balance for Sanhok specifically:
- Increased the overall item spawn amount
- Adjusted the AR spawn balance in the world
  - Increased total amount of AR
    - Slightly decreased spawn ratio for M416, but the total amount spawned will remain similar to before
    - Increased spawn ratio for M16A4, AKM
- We’ve improved the reticle of holographic sight: the reticle is now the same size as a character silhouette seen from 100m away
- Before boarding the plane, you can now throw apples (found in your inventory)
- Changed Redzone rules
  - Generally, redzones will no longer appear inside the safe zone (white circle). There are some exceptions when the blue circle is too close to the white circle.
    - With this change, it becomes a bit more risky to play outside of the safe zone.
Vehicles
- Added extra design variants for the Aquarail
- Added spawn points for Aquarails and Motorbikes near the cave area
UI

Changed some area names:

*Players voted for a similar name in a community poll, but we had to subsequently tweak the name to “Paradise Resort” for legal reasons.

Map changes

We’ve added four new areas:

Cave

Tambang

Lakawi

Na Kham

We’ve also made various improvements to areas throughout Sanhok:

Bhan, located in the middle of island

Ruins, located on the west side of the island

Quarry, located near the middle of the island

Docks, located on the southeast side of the island

Mongnai, located at the northeast side of the island

Bootcamp, located in the middle of the island

Paradise Resort, located on the northeast side of the island

Bug Fixes
- Blood effects should now appear as intended
- Certain FPS drop issues and sound issues have been resolved
- Fixed an issue causing the “aim punch” effect to be too noticeable.
- Certain invisible objects in buildings have been removed
- The minimap now shows areas 200 meters away (instead of 100m)
Known Issues (Investigating)
- Sometimes in FPP, if the player was vaulting at the time when the game starts, the player doesn't get on board in the plane and instead flies straight to the final destination of the plane. (Yes, still)
- When using the Death Cam, sometimes players disappear or weapons become invisible.
- Sometimes in spectate mode or Death Cam, scopes are visible, but scope mesh isn’t.
- Sometimes other players appear as zombies.
- Sometimes the bluezone indicator on the minimap gets temporarily out of sync.
- Weapons sometimes fail to appear when viewed in out-of-game menus.
- Friends list is not working properly.

May 8, 2018

Playerunknown s Battlegrounds new map now named Sanhok, back in testing this week

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

Starting to look more like a thing.

The wee new map coming to Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, previously known as Codename: Savage, still needs a few months of work but it’s done enough to get a wider testing audience and finally receive a name. Sanhok is the name, developers PUBG Corp have announced, a portmanteau of the Thai word for fun and the Filipino word for chicken. Sanhok is a place inspired by islands around southeast Asia, see. Sanhok will launch another period of beta testing this week and this time it won’t require players to sign up for a key, letting everyone who owns the game have a play. (more…)