Like a sandstorm looming on the horizon, preparing to throw sand in your eyes and fill your mouth with cacti and turn you into a tumbleweed (note: I have never been in a sandstorm so that depiction may not be strictly accurate) PUBG's new desert map is headed our way. But while the map should be here by year's end (we were recently teased with some new images), it's never too early to start getting impatient for the next next PUBG map. 

What other settings would we like to see brought to the popular battle royale shooter? Here's a list of my dream locations.

The post-apocalypse

I mean, yeah, PUBG already has a post-apocalypse vibe to it: an island stripped of its population, abandoned buildings, merciless gangs of horn-honkers, and so forth. Something apocalyptic, to some degree, has definitely happened in the world of PUBG, but it can't have been all that cataclysmic. There's still a lot of organization: there must be an entire staff arranging flights and air drops and red-zone bombings, not to mention the dozens of people who stuff the island's buildings with pristine weapons and gear and pants and who carefully park cars before a match.

I'm talking about a proper post-apocalypse, like from Mad Max. Humanity on the brink of extinction. Toxic swamps and mountains of bleached bones and pillars of oily, black smoke. A world where even a sane person would be just like, "Yeah, I'll fight 99 people for the chance at a chicken dinner, it's way better than eating the remains of this inbred mutant warlord I just beat to death with the club made from my father's femur."

A frozen world

Snow is cool in games, but it's usually almost entirely cosmetic. I played the Frostpunk demo recently (speaking of the post-apocalypse), and loved that the snow felt more real than in most games, even though it's a city-builder and not an FPS.

My favorite detail was the way the snow would pile in drifts, and my collection of starving, occasionally cannibalistic workers would have to push their way through it to gather coal and wood. Their shivering bodies would leave grooves through the snow behind them, which would then fill up again as more snow fell. Imagine in PUBG being able to track enemy players through footprints in the frost (as you can in battle royale game The Darwin Project), or spotting a puff of condensation rising from a bush, indicating someone is hiding there. Snow doesn't need to just be pretty, it can actually change the world it falls on.

 Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, China

"Verticality" gets tossed around a lot when devs talk about maps, though It's not something I myself have felt a strong desire for very often. I prefer to have my enemies aiming at me from as few directions as possible, and it's rare that I find myself thinking, "You know, instead of getting shot in the back of the head, I wish I could get shot in the top of the head."

But fine, let's do it! Let's get vertical. Screw buildings, though, they're frame rate killers: let's just rely on nature. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in China is vertical as fuck (don't complain to me about the f-bomb, that's the park's actual tourism slogan). Throw in some of those wobbly rope-n-plank bridges, some ziplines, hang gliders, and maybe a grappling hook, and you've got yourself a beautiful and picturesque place to get shot in the top of the head.

If you're wondering on a map without buildings where you'd find all that great PUBG gear, it's simple. Bird nests.

A lavishly furnished underground missile silo

Prepping for the end of the world is a popular pastime, and no one preps more lavishly than the super rich. Forget backyard bunkers and a few crates of canned meals, the hot ticket for people with gobs of cash is buying decommissioned missile silos that have been transformed into multi-million dollar condominiums.

This is, like, a real thing, apparently. For it to work with PUBG it would need to be a really massive silo, like something from Hugh Howey's Silo books. Instead of a circle closing from the sides, it would close from the top and bottom, forcing players onto a final, specific floor of the silo. Where will this match end? The movie theater? The gym? The nightclub? The golf course? (I assume there will be a golf course down there somewhere.)

A space station—let me finish!—in space

Games have a storied history of worlds built inside rings, from Halo to Planescape to, well, Ringworld. I think some sort of space-station ringworld would be a killer place for PUBG. It being in space and all, I don't see why you couldn't walk off the edge of the ring (while wearing a space suit) and then onto to underside of it and run around down there, too. Space lets you do stuff like that.

Plus, imagine the sniping! Shooting from your location, through outer space, to hit some dude running around on another part of the ring. It also would give you a nice view of the earth during your long minutes spent hiding in a bush and waiting for everyone else to kill each other (this is how I play).

A rat map

When I was a kid there was a company that made oversized items, like a giant pencils. You could buy them and put them in your house. I'm currently struggling to understand why I wanted a giant pencil in my room so much as a kid, but I definitely, definitely did. More than anything, I wanted a giant pencil. I think there's maybe some weird appeal in feeling like you've been hit by a shrink ray and all the tiny things are now huge?

It could explain rat maps. There are lots of them for CS:GO and I recall playing a few in TF2. Why not PUBG? Players would start spread all over the map of the house, fight their way through garages and bathrooms and those areas behind the wall accessed through mouse holes, for a climactic showdown on top of the bureau or under the fridge or among magazines and beer bottles on the coffee table. Winner winner simply enormous chicken dinner.

Skyrim

This is my dream list, so why not Skyrim? Players are dropped (from dragons) onto the map, and must loot weapons and gear (marked in red when it's considered stealing) and then are pursued by a shrinking circle of mudcrabs (or even worse,  a shrinking circle of NPCs talking about mudcrabs). 

Okay, maybe not actually Skyrim, but a fantasy setting would be a fun place for battle royale. Ruins are more interesting than ruined buildings. Castles are more interesting to loot than warehouses and airplane hangars. Runes carved into stone walls are better than the typical end-of-days graffiti we're used to seeing. And riding horses or wargs is better than driving cars. You can't do sick flips onto houses, but they also don't explode.

Brendan Greene, the "PlayerUnknown" who gives PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds its catchy, easy-off-the-tongue title, has shared a fresh batch of work-in-progress images of the new desert map revealed back in July. 

The new images showcase a landscape that's quite a bit more built-up than what we've seen previously, with multiple multi-storey buildings in various states of construction and disrepair, a low-slung shopping plaza, and a crumbling main street running through it. There's also what is very clearly a prison—always a fun place in post-apoc scenarios—and a more wide-open desert area, featuring a run-down single-storey house.

The new screens promise a good mix of environments, and I'm especially excited by the prospect of a proper urban area to blast away in. Still, there's only so much you can get from screenshots; fortunately, we got some hands-on time with the new map last month that you can dive into right here.

Chinese tech company Tencent is apparently still pursuing the acquisition of PlayerUnknown's Battleground creator Bluehole—having had a bid turned down prior to the shooter's runaway success.

As reported by The Korean Times (via GamesIndustry.biz), the tech juggernaut is thought to be the only company that has the stature to manage the takeover—including the likes of Nexon or NCSOFT—against the speed of which Bluehole has grown since PUBG arrived in Early Access in March. 

The Korean Times suggests an IPO (initial public offering) is "out of the question" while Bluhole founder (and 20.4 percent company stakeholder) Chang Byung-gyu holds a government position as the Fourth Industrial Revolution Committee's chairman.  

GamesIndustry.biz reports that IHS Markit analyst Piers Harding-Rolls had this to say of Tencent's supposed moves: 

"If true this is big news (although expected) and also adds another perspective to Tencent's recently announced copycat mobile title Glorious Mission. If a publishing deal has been agreed for PUBG in China, the game will be going through some changes before release. It would also mean a major win for Tencent's WeGame platform (if indeed it was to stay premium). It may see the [Chinese] Steam version withdrawn (like Rocket League)."

The Korean Times also notes that Tencent recently acquired stakes in Riot Games, Epic Games and Blizzard. Bluehole, on the other hand, revealed its latest non-PUBG-related project earlier today in Ascent: Infinite Realm.

Another Playerunknown's Battlegrounds milestone has gone whizzing by, and this one is a biggie. Just two months after claiming ten million copies sold—a remarkable achievement by any measure—creative director Brendan Greene said on Twitter that it has now moved past 20 million. 

The reference to frustration and change tracks back to last week's apology "for the inconvenience caused by the cheaters," and more importantly the promise to do something about it. The developers warned at the time that "our battle against cheaters will not end overnight," but said that a patch is on the way—it should actually be out later this week. 

Cheaters notwithstanding, it's clear that PUBG's popularity isn't waning. Steam reviews are "mixed" (and there are so many of them that the status will likely never change) but moving ten million copies—on top of ten million copies already in the wild—in less than two months is nothing short of astonishing.   

Its player counts aren't diminishing any, either: It hit 2.4 million peak concurrent players today, well over triple that of the former long-time king of the hill, Dota 2, which topped out at 680,000.   

Runaway popularity notwithstanding, PUBG still has a way to go before it becomes a great esport. What does it need to do to get there? We recently spoke to Greene and streamers Ellohime and Anthony Kongphan to find out.  

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' esports aspirations shouldn't come as a big surprise. Its concurrent player count on Steam has been staggering, and it's consistently one of the most watched games on Twitch. A game that millions of people love not just play, but follow and spectate? There's a lot of potential in that, as evidenced by the number of teams that have announced a lineup for the game.  

With its huge scale and unusual pace, however, Battlegrounds could never be a typical esport. It's a game about slow-burning tension rather than constant, explosive action. I spoke with Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene and streamers Ellohime and Anthony Kongphan to find out how Battlegrounds might overcome these obstacles, or if they're even obstacles at all.

"Ever since I started, way back with the DayZ mod for Arma 2, making the DayZ Battle Royale mode, I always envisioned battle royale as a great esport," Greene says. "I wanted to create spectacle in esports, so instead of two teams of five, you've got 100 players in the centre of an arena, with a stadium full of people cheering."

Those competitive battles are in the genre's DNA, but when it came to Battlegrounds, Greene set out to make a good game, first and foremost. A solid, stable experience is the current goal, but if the community is passionate about it becoming an esport as well, then PUBG Corp will do that. Right now, however, the developers are busy researching what the best format for events is, because it's so different from other popular esports. There's a lot to learn, Greene admits. 

Ellohime, who was a commentator during the Battlegrounds Dreamhack tournament, thinks that's the right thing to focus on, too. "If I were to change anything, it would be the spectator system, otherwise I believe their 'optimisation first' mantra is a good focus, and they are developing the game at a good pace, something we have been missing with games like these in the past."

His fellow streamer, Anthony Kongphan, is hoping for a shake-up of the meta, which he's started to find boring. "When you reach the top of the leaderboards at the moment, it leads to mass camping and dull, boring gameplay. Randomness in battle royale-style games is what made PUBG exciting, refreshing and fun when it first came out. I have slowly lost interest based on just getting sick and tired of the same top end camping-style meta."  

Throughout the year, tournaments have pit Battlegrounds players against each other for glory and prizes, and in August, ESL and the Battlegrounds team joined forces to host the Gamescom Invitational. 

"It really was a learning experience," Greene remembers. "I think you saw that over the course of the four days, we got better with each day, and that's what we hope to do with all events: we learn and we improve. It wasn't a perfect event by any means, and there was a lot we learned from it. You know, I tip my hat to the team; every problem that came up, they dealt with, and all the players that were there—while some of them were grumpy—they really carried themselves professionally."

With a big event like the Invitational, there's a large heap of logistical problems that need to be overcome. Even in long-running esports like CS:GO, problems occur, but with those events, the organisers are maybe only worrying about ten PCs. During the Invitational, Greene and his colleagues had to worry about a whopping 80 rigs and a much larger group of players. It's tough to organise, he admits, but he's eager to show off what they've learned in future events.

Ellohime got to witness a lot of this when he was a Dreamhack commentator, and though there were some growing pains, he considers it a success. "I felt like I was watching new parents raise an infant. How delicate a tightrope walk it must be to have a game become so popular so quickly and trying to capitalise on that success. You want to move quickly, but not so quickly as to make mistakes or cause instability. These were baby steps for a genre just trying to find its balance. I think they did exactly what they were supposed to do: allow Bluehole to get a good feel of what they have and what they can do with it on a competitive level at a big event."

Slow burn

Aside from logistical concerns, Battlegrounds is also designed in such a way that spectators don't get the usual esports viewing experience, where there are only a handful of players to watch, and there's usually some exciting action taking place somewhere on the map. Instead, up to 100 players need to be tracked, and the first half of the match might see the majority of them simply hiding and gearing up. Greene doesn't see this as a problem, though. 

"You're going to get people who want all action, all the time, but when I was first designing the battle royale game mode, that's not what it's about. The first half of the match is really about getting your character geared up, preparing for the fight that's going to happen later in the game. There's always going to be downtime, but because of the number of kills that happen, this downtime can be used for replays and stuff like that. So you'll always see some action, but for me, battle royale is about the story the character takes through the round. And we have time to tell that story." 

Ellohime likens it to the difference between golf and hockey. While hockey is aggressive and physical, golf is slow and quiet, until it builds up to these big moments. It's that slow beginning, he says, that makes the end-game more chaotic and exciting. Kongphan, on the other hand, thinks it needs more aggression, and more incentives to be aggressive.

"There need to be more incentives in aggressive gameplay in battle royale games, or else it ends up being whoever can 'hide' or 'camp' the best wins. Most of the comments I received from viewers [watching the tournament] was that it was not very entertaining action-wise." 

Despite this, Kongphan still believes that there are things that can help make Battlegrounds stand out, as an esport. "Since it is a battle royale and revolves around item luck and end game circle luck, it won't ever be as perfectly balanced as games like Counter-Strike or Call of Duty, but given its sporadic nature, it brings more to the table in terms of entertainment for viewers, which in the end I think is most important."  

While Greene sees the downtime as an opportunity for replays, Ellohime has some concerns about the difficulty in capturing and showing the audience the action. "Fire fights are unpredictable, and many can pop up at once. How do you have the foresight to know when these battles will occur? How do you choose which ones to watch? How do you follow 100 people with one camera? Typical esports have a central focal point the viewer can pretty much always be watching, or at the least, a small enough map or team size to watch 90% of the action. It begs the question: how is PUBG going to keep things interesting and make sure they are showing the right content from the right perspective?"

Easy viewing

Greene thinks that the slow pace and relative simplicity—land, gear up, hide or kill—makes it more accessible. He contrasts it to games like Dota 2, where new players can't just fire up a stream and immediately understand what's going on. Battlegrounds' straightforward concept makes it a lot easier for new players and spectators to parse.

"People come up to me and say that, not only do they play, now their sister plays, their father plays, or their mother loves to watch or play the game. It's very accessible, and it's easy to understand. There's the guy. He has to not die. That, I think, makes it accessible to a wide range of people."

It's one of the things that Ellohime thinks makes it a potentially compelling esport, as well. "Esports hits a wall when viewers outside of the game's community cannot understand what they are watching. For example, you put me in front of League of Legends, and I get the basic concept, but I never really got that deep into it, so it is confusing sometimes when I watch big plays happen. I understand a big play took place, but I couldn't tell you how or why it went down. Now imagine someone completely foreign to gaming, PUBG is insanely relatable in this regard due to the popularity of The Hunger Games and Battle Royale movies. I can explain the premise in a sentence and people immediately understand what they are watching."

Though he has a vision for Battlegrounds and the esport that might be spun out of it, Greene is absolutely willing to make changes and tweaks to improve the competitive side of things, based on what players feel is needed. For instance, during the Invitational, the red zone was removed, letting players travel across the map without fear of random bombardments. It might be that this becomes an option across the board, if enough players are keen on it.  

"We're pretty flexible with what shape the esports side of things takes. All through development we've listened to the community to get their feedback on what can make the game great. We have our own vision, but really it's what the community feels happy with. And it's the same with its potential as an esport: we have an idea of what will work, but the community will tell us what they want."

Ultimately, Greene and PUBG Corp don't want to make any hard plans about the competitive elements without player support, and they don't want to make the mistake a lot of games have made by calling it 'esports ready' out of the gate. The focus right now is on making it the best battle royale game it can be. "It's not a sprint, it's a marathon," he says. 

As for its long-term future as an esport, both Ellohime and Kongphan are optimistic. 

"I believe they have a great chance at making it an enjoyable competition for everyone involved. To me, it has all the right ingredients to make a spectacular esport," says Ellohime. Though he mentions the caveat that it would need to solve the issue of how to present the action for the audience, when there are up to 100 players and different battles all vying for attention. 

"It's such an entertaining game to watch," adds Kongphan. "With fine tuning and adjustments to keep the momentum of entertainment throughout the game, it will flourish."

There is an interesting trend happening on Steam. A look at its hardware and software survey indicates a massive drop in Windows 10 usage—it is down more than 18 percent in the month of October, while Windows 7 jumped 22.45 percent. The two OSes effectively swapped places, with nearly two thirds of Steam gamers now using Windows 7, and just over a quarter of gamers rocking Windows 10. Are gamers ditching Windows 10 in droves? Should Microsoft be concerned?

The answer to that is, 'probably not.' At first glance, it appears there is a mass exodus from Windows 10, which could occur if something catastrophic happened, like the discovery of a major vulnerability like Windows has never seen before. But that hasn't happened. The much more likely explanation is that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' popularity in China is the reason why the two OSes traded spots.

While the numbers above look frightening for Microsoft, especially with its renewed focus on PC gaming with Windows 10, a look at the language stats reveals what is almost certainly happening. Simplified Chinese shot up nearly 27 percent in October. It now consists of more than half of the user base, while English dropped 13.4 percent in the same month, landing at 21.24 percent.

Bluehole has sold more than 13 million copies of PUBG globally, with growing interest from Chinese gamers. China, which has reportedly considered banning PUBG, represents the game's biggest region by player population (though it's probably safe for now). We've also previously reported on review bombing, and how the influx of Chinese players on Steam are creating an influential new contingent.

Our guess is the massive drop in share for Windows 10 on Steam is largely a reflection of geographical trends. It's possible that some users have also downgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 7, but the bulk of that OS shift is down to PUBG's insane growth in China.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' anti-cheat service is banning as many as 42,000 players a day but it's still not enough, with some matches plagued by hackers. It's a fact that the development team apologised for earlier today, adding that it is introducing new measures to catch players that are ruining the game for everyone else.

The team will roll out "additional measures" today designed to detect "unusual gameplay patterns". Any accounts thrown up by the system will be temporarily suspended and investigated. A further patch next week will also bolster cheat detection.

"We would like to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by the cheaters and we are sorry that you have not been able to enjoy PUBG in a safe and fair environment. Our development team is doing their best to detect and ban those who use cheats in a more proactive manner," the team said in a Steam post.

"We will continue our research and development to establish a better system for combating cheaters. We will take stronger actions to find and ban cheaters, while at the same time taking good care to not harm innocent players."

PUBG is leaving Early Access in December, and the long-awaited climbing and vaulting mechanics will soon be available on the test servers.

At Paris Games Week Today, the developers of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds announced it's leaving Early Access this December. "Late December," to be more precise. That release looks like it will closely follow the launch of the Xbox One version of PUBG on December 12, which will include the much-anticipated vaulting system that's coming to the PC test servers soon.

An Xbox press release by PUBG Corp. CEO Chang Han Kim says the following:

"In addition to announcing Xbox’s XGP launch date on December 12, we also shared the exciting news that we’re on track to launch 1.0 for the PC version in late December. This has been an amazing year for us and launching both 1.0 on PC and on Xbox through Xbox Game Preview are huge milestones for the team. I’m incredibly proud of how far we’ve come in such a short time, but I’m even more excited to say that we’re just getting started."

The press release also states that the two versions of the game won't be identical, though that divide may not last long: "Both versions are being developed at the same time, but they both have their own separate roadmaps. Various Xbox One features and functionality will change and come online over time just like they have on PC, with our goal being to have both versions align to each other as soon as possible."

The new desert map will be included in the 1.0 PC release scheduled for December, and will come to Xbox later. You can watch the full VOD of the announcements here, though watch out for some early audio problems (skip to 12:30 to save your ears, headphone users). 

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds aims to roll out its long-awaited vaulting and climbing mechanics this week on test server—however it appears the online battle royale game could now face being banned entirely in China, the game's biggest region by player population. 

That's according to this Bloomberg report (via Gamesindustry.biz) which suggests the game's last-person standing, battle to the death-style makeup presents a "deviation" from the country's "socialist core values and traditional Chinese culture and ethical norms". 

In turn, the Chinese content watchdog reckons PUBG is "not conducive to the physical and mental health of young consumers".   

Loosely translated by Google, here's the watchdog's advice to Chinese developers that might echo games such as PUBG: "To this end, I recommend the domestic game companies should not arrange [research and develop], the introduction of such games, do not advocate to test such a way to attract users. At the same time, gaming, live and other platforms should not be such games to provide publicity, promotion and other services."

Recently, a Chinese Terminator 2 mobile game surfaced that includes a suspiciously familiar battle royale mode. The company responsible, NetEase, works in partnership with Blizzard in operating online games such as Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and StarCraft 2 in the region.

Update: As detailed in our original story below,  PUBG was expected to roll out its much-anticipated vaulting and climbing features this week via its test servers. Unfortunately, an unexpected issue during internal testing has postponed the new additions. 

Bluehole hasn't provided much on the hows and whys of the delay, besides suggesting it's to "allow for a smooth testing of the new features and content."

We'll update as and when we know more.

Original story: PUBG creator Brendan Greene said in June that vaulting, climbing, and diving would all be coming to the game, a plan that was firmed up a few months later when he said that the vaulting part, at least, was expected to go live in November. It turns out that he was pretty much dead-on with the estimate, as the PUBG team announced on Steam today that "we will be running the test servers for PC 1.0 for the first time next week," giving players an opportunity to climb, vault, and test changes to driving, ballistics, and other "features and systems." 

"Crossing and scaling obstacles may intermittently create many new tactical options available to the players. The standard jump feature can be used in standard situations, but there are many areas where it does not suffice. After all, PUBG features a play area of considerable proportions. In addition, objects located on the map differ greatly in shape and size," the developers wrote. "Such complexity can cause many problems for the players who need to rely on fast and effective means of jumping over (or on top of) boxes, containers, fences etc. For that reason we have decided to implement dynamic vaulting and climbing mechanics." 

The initial plan was to enable climbing objects of up to one meter in height, but that was eventually increased to a height limit of roughly 2.3 meters. Almost anything can be climbed as long as the height is right; players will be able to climb chest-high objects with a weapon in hand, while those that are higher will require two hands, so your weapon will automatically be holstered before you start to ascend. 

Predictably, implementing the new system will be a complex undertaking. The post digs into the technical elements a little, but the bottom line is that it will probably be a rocky road to start with. "Due to the nature of this system, we expect possible issues, bugs and problems to occur," the PUBG team said. "Ironing out this feature may take some more time, but we do hope you will have a lot of fun with it and make great use of it. We are eagerly awaiting your feedback and reports." 

The developers also promised ongoing efforts against PUBG cheaters, including "new measures to better identify and track" the people who play unfairly.   

"For a very long time, our development team has been analyzing data from a large pool of users who show abnormal gameplay behavior to build a system that helps us positively identify cheaters. We are now able to use the system to identify and ban these users more proactively. Using this system, we have already identified and banned about 20K additional users in only one day," the message says. 

"This is only a start. On top of BattlEye, we will use a monitoring system to strengthen our efforts to prevent use of cheats and impose penalties on them. We promise you that we will continue to do our best to quickly find and ban people who use cheats. We hope you will start to see an improvement going forward." 

One thing that isn't coming, however, is a single-player campaign: Greene confirmed with Gamespot at PAX Australia that despite wanting to do it, there's no time, no resources, and "no plans to add anything like this to the game. No single-player is coming to Battlegrounds."