Update: the lag should now be fixed. Huzzah!>

If you’ve tried to play Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds [official site] since yesterday’s big update, you’ve likely noticed that the early access Battle Royale ’em up has gotten itself into a bit of a state. It’s suffered from sound stuttering and glitching out, low FPS, and problems with reconnecting, among others. Bluehole Studio have been hastily patching but one big problem still remains: server lag which has claimed many lives and made others pretty unpleasant. Not every round gets ruined but the problem is common enough that I’ve stopped playing Plunkbat until this is fixed. Bluehole say they’re working on it. (more…)

The latest big ‘monthly’ update to early access Battle Royale ’em up Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds [official site] may have been delayed to this Thursday but the wait will be worth it: the patch will finally add Plunkbat’s Blue Hi-top Trainers to the pool of permanent unlockable clothing. In this hell of xtreme ’90s fashion, at least we’ll have good shoes every round. Oh, and the update will also add first-person-only servers, and a field of view slider, and performance optimisations, and Brendan ‘Playerunknown’ Greene has apologised for how poorly they handled announcing this update’s paid cosmetic crate, but the important point is: unlockable Blue Hi-tops. (more…)

Well even if the Sun won’t shine, the Steam Charts can still spread brightness into our lives. By some manner of wondrous majjicks, this week’s chart doesn’t even include H1Z1, Fallout 4, nor The Witcher 3! I barely even know what to do with myself. I’m dizzy! Come, join the celebration. (more…)

I m only posting news about Playerunkown s Battlegrounds [official site] because our resident PlunkBatters – Alice, Graham and Adam – are nowhere to be found. Perhaps they are playing right now? All of them, unwisely traipsing together across an open field together. Suddenly, BAM. Graham is down a shot to the ribcage. Alice hits the dirt, shouting directions. Adam tries to run to the nearest shrub, but is ambushed by a man hiding in an overturned jeep. BAM. A rifle round in the belly. Alice, friendless and surrounded, weighs her options and reloads her machine gun with a fresh magazine. It s time to take out the tra–

BAM.

She never saw the man who killed her. A single 9mm bullet to the back of the skull. He looms over her corpse. It s Brendan Greene, the Playerunknown himself. He takes a drag of an almost-finished cigarette. We will be resetting the leaderboards, he says, flicking the spent cig onto Alice s cadaver, on the first of each month in order to test new ranking algorithms and ELO changes. (more…)

Battle Royale ’em up Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is to get explictly Battle Royale-y with new outfits based on the movie which launched a thousand early access ships. Most of these will only be available in a special crate which will only be available for a limited time and, to raise money for a Plunkbat tournament, will cost $2.50 to open.

Unfortunately, the big ‘monthly’ update expected this Thursday has delayed back to next week, held up by a now-smashed bug. It will, when it gets here, add the promised first-person-only servers. (more…)

Twenty minute stand-offs, vehicular carnage, and acts of extreme bravery and (more often) cowardice. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds [official site] has been one of the most-played games on Steam since its Early Access launch, and RPS are no strangers to its violent delights. Adam and Graham have been playing together for weeks now, and they sat down to discuss tactics, tales and what they want from the game as development continues.>

Graham: Here is a thought I keep having: I love Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, but it’s not a very nuanced game, is it? I’ve become so used to multiplayer games that are elaborate mechanical houses of cards (I’m bad at analogies today), with classes and multiple modes and interacting character abilities and the sense that everything is so very carefully balanced alongside everything else.

By comparison, Battlegrounds is a spartan throwback to an earlier era. Big map, lots of players, there are some guns about, have at it. I think it’s re-calibrated my critical brain somewhat, because suddenly those other elaborate games appear needlessly ornate.

(more…)

As the Steam Summer Sale closes, here’s the last of the charts influenced by the discounts, before they return to being exactly the same as they were before the sale, and indeed during it.

So this week we’re going to dig into the history of these familiar names, revealing some secrets of their pasts that many may not already know. … [visit site to read more]

Cor blimey, love a duck, stone the crows, decide to be ‘just good friends’ with a ptarmigan, and subtweet an owl: another early access game has been delayed. The splendid Battle Royale ’em up Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds [official site] was due to launch in full within six months of hitting early access — by around the end of September 2017 — but creator Brendan ‘Playerunknown’ Greene now says it’ll launch some time from October to the end of the year. The delay is because Bluehole Studio would rather not rush Plunkbat out, obvs, and instead launch when it’s ready. … [visit site to read more]

Since release in March, battle-royale-’em-up PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds [official site] has sold 4 million copies, and at the time of writing it’s the third most played game on Steam in terms of concurrent users. That’s not bad given that its creator, Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ Greene, has never made a game before, only got involved in modding a few years ago, and doesn’t really consider himself a gamer.

At this year’s EGX Rezzed in April, I spoke to Greene about his rapid journey through the industry, his plans for new modes in Battlegrounds, how he feels about competition with H1Z1, and his hope of giving back to the community that helped him by turning the game into a modding platform. … [visit site to read more]

The creator of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds [official site] has shown off corners of a desert map coming to the early access Battle Royale ’em up with a future update. Yeah yeah it looks a bit like Fallout: New Vegas’s nuclear wasteland but the real point is: a bicycle is visible in one screenshot. Is this a cheeky tease of rideable bicycles coming? We can only hope. Will the bicycle have a ringable bell? We can only dream! … [visit site to read more]