PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds continues to teem with people trying to feed their families with delicious chicken dinners, but yesterday it dipped below a million daily players for the first time in just over a year, according to numbers from SteamDB. 

The dip didn’t come out of the blue. PUBG’s numbers have been slowly declining since its 3.2 million peak at the start of the year. Decline perhaps oversells it. Across the year it’s jumped around, though each peak is typically smaller than the last. Even when it went below a million players yesterday, 960,000 people is still a considerable number, along with over 90,000 people watching on Twitch. 

As Eurogamer points out, yesterday also saw the arrival of Black Ops 4’s very own battle royale mode, Blackout, at least in beta form. That was exclusively for Playstation 4 pre-orders, however, so while it might have contributed to the numbers, I’m not convinced it was the main reason. It’s been teetering just above one million daily players for most of the last month.  

Competition from Fortnite is a much more obvious reason, along with a slew of imitators and other battle royales which might not contribute much alone, but together have been tempting away a chunk of PUBG’s audience. 2018 has also been a banner year for games. Big games that swallow up months at a time. The competition for our attention spans has rarely been this ferocious. 

PUBG Corp is trying to “fix PUBG” in the face of this competition, though officially it’s because the developer feels that it hasn’t met expectations. This was announced last month, however, and is not a reaction to yesterday’s numbers. Whenever big games start to dwindle, I always think about World of Warcraft. It shed half of its subscribers in five years, but continues to loom large over every other MMO. Chicken dinners probably aren’t going to go out of style any time soon. 

Were you hooked on PUBG before moving onto greener pastures? Tell us the story of your exodus in the comments. 

As promised at Gamescom, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' training mode has arrived. Courtesy of its substantial PC 1.0 Update #21, the latest offering also brings a new weapon and a new vehicle—the MK47 Mutant and the Tukshai. 

PUBG's training mode is teased in the trailer above, and can be joined in-game via the main lobby. It's 2x2km in size, says developer PUBG Corp, and kicks off when there are more than five players lined up in the matchmaking queue. Players can join individual sessions up to five minutes after they've kicked off, and sessions host a maximum of 20 bodies. 

"If there are still less than 5 players after 5 minutes, the session will start with the original number of players present and other players cannot join the session," reads this Steam Community post. Training sessions last for 30 minutes at a time, and players cannot drop below 1hp for the duration. Get the lay of the land: 

Found all on three maps, the MK47 Mutant is an automatic rifle with two firing modes: single shot and two-round burst. It take 7.62mm bullets, has a 20 round capacity, supports almost all types of attachments and looks like this:

The new Tukshai vehicle, on the other hand, is a slow, three-person scooter-cart combo that's exclusive to Sanhok and substitutes the UAZ, Dacia and Minibus. It looks like this: 

PUBG's also PC 1.0 Update #21 rolls out a new supply system, which grants players rewards based on play time and completed missions. Filling your survival gauge, for example, lets you level up—and levelling up nets you a reward. Missions will be refreshed daily and weekly, says PUBG Corp. 

Full patch notes for PUBG's PC 1.0 Update #21 can be found here—including notes on UI tweaks, BP system adjustments and details of its newest laser sight attachment. Let's part ways with some moving pictures of the latter.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' latest limited-time event mode is Silent and Violent. No, it's not about flatulence. Yes, it is about sniper rifles. 

"Scurry through the hills of Sahnok with a fully loaded out VSS and eliminate as many enemies as possible in this squad-based war mode event," says developer PUBG Corp of the limited-time mode that's live now through September 9 at 7pm PST / September 10 at 3am BST. 

The rules of this 'un are pretty straightforward: all players spawn into the war mode with a fully-modified VSS, a level one helmet and vest, five bandages, one energy drink, one stun grenade and one smoke grenade. From there, it's shoot to kill. 

In squads of four, matches welcome a maximum 40 players. The weather is overcast, red zones are disabled—as are care packages, friendly fire and vehicle respawns. Kills make points, and the first team to 150 points wins. Dead players respawn in planes above every 30 seconds and "if no team reaches 150 points after 15 minutes, the team with the most point wins," says this Steam Community post. 

In other PUBG news, the battle royale 'em up has rolled out its long-awaited training mode.