PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

We expected a long-awaited substantial look at the new PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds desert map Miramar during the Game Awards tonight, but we got more than just that. Firstly, PUBG Corporation revealed that the game will launch out of Early Access on December 20. Secondly, the desert map is playable now on the PUBG test servers.

Chris visited Bluehole in South Korea in September, and spent some time galavanting around the in-development map. 

More to come.

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

Yesterday, we learned more about PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' much-anticipated desert map—including its name and details of its specific regions. Today, developer PUBG Corp has confirmed the existence of the previously rumoured jet ski and R45 six-shot revolver.

As told by Nvidia, the latter is exclusive to the Miramar desert map, replacing Erangel's R1895. Unlike the gun it swaps out, the R45 doesn't support a suppressor. It can, however, be equipped with red dot laser sight.    

"Another differentiation from the R1895 is the use of speed loaders, enabling you to load all six rounds simultaneously, greatly accelerating reload times, putting the R45’s reload speed more in line with other PUBG pistols," reads a post on the Nvidia site. 

The R45 revolver was among the weapons recently uncovered by dataminers—as was this model for an 'Aquarail' jet ski. Now, the game's official Twitter account has confirmed the Aquarail for both Miramar and Erangel.

Which should make for some interesting seafaring showdowns. Will it match the at-sea battles promised by PUBG's Chinese mobile game? I guess time will tell. 

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Fraser Brown)

desert

After months of teases and screenshots, the curtain has finally been pulled back on Playerunknown s Battlegrounds desert map, which will be joining the island when Plunkbat leaves early access. It will be in the 1.0 test servers before that, however. It s got a name now, too! I mean, we re all going to keep calling it the desert map, probably, but its proper name is Miramar, which means sea-view . Lovely!

(more…)

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

After months of teasing, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has finally named its upcoming desert map and detailed some its various locales.

Miramar, the new map's final name, will offer a more varied landscape of locations and hotspots than the original Erangel. Two cities - Los Leones and El Pozo - make up much of the map's urban areas. The former will offer high-rise opportunities to hunker down, while the latter includes a Luchador arena and motorbike ring.

Then there's the smaller town of Pecado, which features a casino to loot for top-end gear.

Read more…

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has spent the last several weeks teasing screens of its incoming desert map, and is set to showcase its first in-game footage at The Game Awards tomorrow. Now, developer Bluehole has revealed more on what it's all about—including its name, and details of its specific regions. 

Named Miramar, Bluehole notes moving in the "opposite direction" to the greenery and forestry found in the current Erangel map, wherein old strategies and tactics may no longer be as effective as before. 

As detailed in this Steam community post, here's what to expect from each of the new map's eight regions:

The same community post also shares a handful of screens: 

"These aren't the only fun places to visit, of course, but you will have to discover the rest of them on your own," adds the post. "Miramar will be playable during the final test round before PUBG hits version 1.0."

For more on PUBG's latest map, here's Chris on how it was made.

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - MephieKim


Players,
We are excited beyond words that we can finally share the name of our new desert map and tell you a little bit about some of the places you can visit. When we decided to create a new map, we focused on creating an environment that is very different from Erangel. We wanted to go the opposite direction of having lush fields and forests and arrived at the harsh and unforgiving desert of what we can now reveal is Miramar. The unique terrain and dense urban areas of Miramar will create a new Battle Royale experience where the old strategies may no longer work and new tactics are required. We don't want to tell you too much as you will soon be able to experience it all yourself but we did write a few short descriptions of several of the key landmarks and towns. You can find them below, together with the new screenshots.




Los Leones
  • The largest city in the region, Los Leones features ample shopping, a skyline filled with new construction, and a glorious, golden-hued City Center. Players should secure high vantage points by exploring the numerous construction sites, and loot for gear in the cavernous, abandoned commercial buildings.
El Pozo
  • El Pozo is a city known for its large industrial and entertainment districts. Players can test themselves against all comers in the Luchador Arena, put their motorcycle skills to the test In the death bowl, or hunt in the ruins of the long dead textile factories.
Monte Nuevo
  • Monte Nuevo is the picture of a town besieged. Ramshackle walls built to protect its residents now allow players ample cover to explore the well-stocked compound.
Valle del Mar
  • Valle del Mar is a colorful oceanside town bisected by the De Toro bridge. To the West of the bridge is a quaint school, and to the East, a beautiful church. The key to holding this town is bridge control, as it’s the only direct route between mainland and the island.
La Cobreria
  • The shipping and transport capitol of Miramar, La Cobrería’s most prominent feature is it’s enormous Rail Yard. Here, players will hunt and be hunted among the half-buried cargo of a long dead industry. Careful players should loot the schools and campuses that dot this town before attempting to hold the Yard.
San Martin
  • San Martín is located just west of Hacienda Del Patrón. Checkpoints and barriers have transformed this once-quiet small town into a war zone. Both sides of the town have overlooks, so careful players should scout first, before charging into town.
Pecado
  • Once a tourist destination featuring the largest casino in the region, Pecado continues to thrill players to this day with its mix of high-value loot and dangerous sightlines. Aggressive players will immediately loot the Arena and Casino, but savvy players should check out the 4 story hotels between them.
Chumacera
  • Chumacera is the husk of Miramar’s once thriving textile industry. Long abandoned factories overlook a main road lined with residential and commercial buildings. Verticality in both the buildings and terrain make this town an exciting location to loot- high risk, high opportunity!













These aren't the only fun places to visit, of course, but you will have to discover the rest of them on your own. Miramar will be playable during the final test round before PUBG hits version 1.0. When you get your hands on it, you can share your favorite moments, top plays and beautiful vistas from Miramar with us on Twitter and Facebook using
#ThisIsBattleRoyale


See you in-game,
The PUBG Development and Community Team
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - MephieKim


Players,
We are excited beyond words that we can finally share the name of our new desert map and tell you a little bit about some of the places you can visit. When we decided to create a new map, we focused on creating an environment that is very different from Erangel. We wanted to go the opposite direction of having lush fields and forests and arrived at the harsh and unforgiving desert of what we can now reveal is Miramar. The unique terrain and dense urban areas of Miramar will create a new Battle Royale experience where the old strategies may no longer work and new tactics are required. We don't want to tell you too much as you will soon be able to experience it all yourself but we did write a few short descriptions of several of the key landmarks and towns. You can find them below, together with the new screenshots.




Los Leones
  • The largest city in the region, Los Leones features ample shopping, a skyline filled with new construction, and a glorious, golden-hued City Center. Players should secure high vantage points by exploring the numerous construction sites, and loot for gear in the cavernous, abandoned commercial buildings.
El Pozo
  • El Pozo is a city known for its large industrial and entertainment districts. Players can test themselves against all comers in the Luchador Arena, put their motorcycle skills to the test In the death bowl, or hunt in the ruins of the long dead textile factories.
Monte Nuevo
  • Monte Nuevo is the picture of a town besieged. Ramshackle walls built to protect its residents now allow players ample cover to explore the well-stocked compound.
Valle del Mar
  • Valle del Mar is a colorful oceanside town bisected by the De Toro bridge. To the West of the bridge is a quaint school, and to the East, a beautiful church. The key to holding this town is bridge control, as it’s the only direct route between mainland and the island.
La Cobreria
  • The shipping and transport capitol of Miramar, La Cobrería’s most prominent feature is it’s enormous Rail Yard. Here, players will hunt and be hunted among the half-buried cargo of a long dead industry. Careful players should loot the schools and campuses that dot this town before attempting to hold the Yard.
San Martin
  • San Martín is located just west of Hacienda Del Patrón. Checkpoints and barriers have transformed this once-quiet small town into a war zone. Both sides of the town have overlooks, so careful players should scout first, before charging into town.
Pecado
  • Once a tourist destination featuring the largest casino in the region, Pecado continues to thrill players to this day with its mix of high-value loot and dangerous sightlines. Aggressive players will immediately loot the Arena and Casino, but savvy players should check out the 4 story hotels between them.
Chumacera
  • Chumacera is the husk of Miramar’s once thriving textile industry. Long abandoned factories overlook a main road lined with residential and commercial buildings. Verticality in both the buildings and terrain make this town an exciting location to loot- high risk, high opportunity!













These aren't the only fun places to visit, of course, but you will have to discover the rest of them on your own. Miramar will be playable during the final test round before PUBG hits version 1.0. When you get your hands on it, you can share your favorite moments, top plays and beautiful vistas from Miramar with us on Twitter and Facebook using
#ThisIsBattleRoyale


See you in-game,
The PUBG Development and Community Team
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - MephieKim


Players,
As some of you may already know, we’ve been working on improving vehicle sounds in our game and have spoken to PUBG Sound FX Lead Kyungwon Park and our Action and Gunplay Programmer Marek Krasowski.



What were your main goals with these changes to vehicle sounds?

Our main goals were improving the quality of the sound effects (and sound samples) and optimizing the vehicle sounds. We decided to change the vehicle audio because our audio quality was subpar compared to the rest of the game sounds. It was problematic especially because we did not have an audio library with the correct vehicle sounds that we have in the game. We researched granular synthesis plugin (REV) and it reduced our usage of channels and CPU per vehicle. This improved the sound quality dramatically by taking the exact engine RPM from each vehicle model.

We also had to modify our vehicles to behave more like real-world vehicles. Now we model acceleration and gear box ratio, engine parameters very similar to the real-world models. This is a system that is already commonly used by many other Triple A racing games. Before, we had vehicle audio effects corresponding to every 1000 rpm, up to the maximum rpm. We used to blend them to suit the specific rpm and it was very hard to make realistic acceleration sounds this way because of a technical limit. The range of sound effects is now extended a lot more but this is still a work in progress and we will add more effects as we go.





Can you briefly explain what kind of work went into improving the vehicle sounds?

We sent a list of vehicles that are used in-game to recording companies in Germany, asking for engine sound, driving sound, brake sound, and so forth. It took approximately two to three weeks for these companies to find the exact vehicles and record the sounds. Then we used the REV program to tweak and fit the actual driving experience with proper acceleration curve and parameters.





Vaulting system involves over 40 different animations. How many sound sources are included for each vehicle?

We worked on engine sound, gear box shifting sound, clutch, ground surface running sound, spinning/sliding/braking wheels, and there are still more detailed sounds to come.





What else do you intend to improve in the future?

We still have a lot of work left in terms of the vehicle sounds on different surfaces. We plan to make our own sound samples with filming studios in the future. We are also interested in switching between the interior sound and the exterior sound of a vehicle when a character shifts between FPP and TPP to make it more realistic. We have already made a system that changes the vehicle sound according to the user's point of view but it is not perfect yet. We plan to improve it considering the structural character of each vehicle.


Any last words to our players?

Please be mindful that this still a work in progress. We really appreciate your feedback and it helps us improve the game a lot. We do read your feedback and gain a lot of insight from it.



We’ve also prepared a short video showing how some of the vehicle sounds were recorded. You can find it below. Hope you enjoy!

https://youtu.be/aHIv35aHVF8


See you in-game,
The PUBG Development and Community Team
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - MephieKim


Players,
As some of you may already know, we’ve been working on improving vehicle sounds in our game and have spoken to PUBG Sound FX Lead Kyungwon Park and our Action and Gunplay Programmer Marek Krasowski.



What were your main goals with these changes to vehicle sounds?

Our main goals were improving the quality of the sound effects (and sound samples) and optimizing the vehicle sounds. We decided to change the vehicle audio because our audio quality was subpar compared to the rest of the game sounds. It was problematic especially because we did not have an audio library with the correct vehicle sounds that we have in the game. We researched granular synthesis plugin (REV) and it reduced our usage of channels and CPU per vehicle. This improved the sound quality dramatically by taking the exact engine RPM from each vehicle model.

We also had to modify our vehicles to behave more like real-world vehicles. Now we model acceleration and gear box ratio, engine parameters very similar to the real-world models. This is a system that is already commonly used by many other Triple A racing games. Before, we had vehicle audio effects corresponding to every 1000 rpm, up to the maximum rpm. We used to blend them to suit the specific rpm and it was very hard to make realistic acceleration sounds this way because of a technical limit. The range of sound effects is now extended a lot more but this is still a work in progress and we will add more effects as we go.





Can you briefly explain what kind of work went into improving the vehicle sounds?

We sent a list of vehicles that are used in-game to recording companies in Germany, asking for engine sound, driving sound, brake sound, and so forth. It took approximately two to three weeks for these companies to find the exact vehicles and record the sounds. Then we used the REV program to tweak and fit the actual driving experience with proper acceleration curve and parameters.





Vaulting system involves over 40 different animations. How many sound sources are included for each vehicle?

We worked on engine sound, gear box shifting sound, clutch, ground surface running sound, spinning/sliding/braking wheels, and there are still more detailed sounds to come.





What else do you intend to improve in the future?

We still have a lot of work left in terms of the vehicle sounds on different surfaces. We plan to make our own sound samples with filming studios in the future. We are also interested in switching between the interior sound and the exterior sound of a vehicle when a character shifts between FPP and TPP to make it more realistic. We have already made a system that changes the vehicle sound according to the user's point of view but it is not perfect yet. We plan to improve it considering the structural character of each vehicle.


Any last words to our players?

Please be mindful that this still a work in progress. We really appreciate your feedback and it helps us improve the game a lot. We do read your feedback and gain a lot of insight from it.



We’ve also prepared a short video showing how some of the vehicle sounds were recorded. You can find it below. Hope you enjoy!

https://youtu.be/aHIv35aHVF8


See you in-game,
The PUBG Development and Community Team
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

When I visited PUBG's studios in South Korea in September, art director Tae-Seok Jang (he was, ironically, in the US at the time) told me via Skype that one of the features of PUBG's upcoming desert map would be a real difference between driving on roads and driving over unpaved terrain.

"But it really depends on which vehicle you have," he told me, "so you should be able to make a choice, which vehicle you prefer for your strategy. Like, some vehicles will be more optimized for clean roads, some will be more optimized for off-road driving."

We've just been teased with what definitely looks like an ideal off-road vehicle, and it's coming "soon" exclusively to PUBG's desert map. Data miners spotted a version of it few weeks ago (along with a jet ski) but it's looking a bit more polished and complete now, ready to be driven until you're drilled through the dome by a sick crossbow shot.

I'm not much of a car guy—more of a TV guy—and this looks a bit like the GMC K-2500 Wideside from the 1980's action show The Fall Guy, about a stunt man (Lee Majors) turned bounty hunter (also Lee Majors). I'm guessing someone can correct me in the comments if it's a different kind of truck (perhaps Lee Majors himself). At any rate, it looks up to the task of some off-road action.

When will the new map and new truck (and new guns) actually arrive? Well, PUBG 1.0 is due out before the end of the year, so that leaves only about 4 weeks. We'll get a look at some gameplay of the new map during The Game Awards on December 7.

...