If you ve always wanted to drop into Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, but lacked the PC power, you might soon be in luck. The developers are currently running a beta test for PUBG Lite; a version of the game designed to run with much lower hardware requirements.
They ve also lowered the monetary requirement about as far as it’ll go, making this version of the game free-to-play.
PUBG Lite, a stripped-down, free-to-download version of the battle royale meant for low-spec PCs, has started beta testing - but it's for Thailand only right now.
The Thailand-only beta test will help PUBG Corp. decide whether PUBG Lite is a viable product for other regions, the company said in a blog post.
PUBG Lite is for players who live in areas where "the core game's required specifications are more difficult to achieve due to the hardware available".
PUBG Corporation is testing a new version of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds called PUBG Lite that will have reduced hardware requirements and—this is the big one—will be free.
"Our goal for PUBG Lite is simple: Deliver the Playerunknown's Battlegrounds experience to players in areas where the core game’s required specifications are more difficult to achieve due to the hardware available," the announcement says.
"To this end, the PUBG Lite team has focused on balancing lower hardware requirements, without compromising on our quality standards. The end result is a build that is playable even on computers and laptops utilizing integrated graphics."
This is what you'll need to play:
Minimum system requirements:
Recommended:
PUBG Lite will be a standalone game, with its own development team and content creation stream, and will support solo, duo, and squad play in third-person perspective. Beta players will do battle on Erangel, the original PUBG map, but more "maps and content familiar to PUBG players" will be added at some point down the road. For now, the beta is only available in Thailand, but assuming it goes reasonably smoothly I would expect that market to broaden in the relatively near future.
I also expect it will lead into some interesting questions about the game's future. Will a free PUBG cannibalize the premium version? Is PUBG Corp really going to support separate development tracks for what is essentially the same game—and for how long? And if it's possible to make the game run reasonably well on an Intel HD4000 chipset, why not focus the effort on the existing version, rather than splitting into separate branches?
PUBG Corp said it will continue to analyze feedback and share updates on the beta as it progresses.
One of the most challenging aspects of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, for new and experienced players alike, is keeping track of the vast array of guns to choose from, how they differ from one another, what attachments you can equip onto each weapon, and whether anything has changed since the last time you played. PUBG features nearly forty guns to choose from, each with specific stats relating to damage, range, recoil, bullet drop, and much more. It’s a hell of a learning curve, no matter whereabouts you find yourself on it.
In our PUBG weapons guide, you’ll find a comprehensive overview of every weapon in PUBG, from bogstandard pistols and SMGs to coveted air drop-only weapons like the AWM and the M249, and even map-exclusive variants such as the G36C and the QBZ. You can take a look and find the stats of each weapon, as well as our personal opinions on how the guns perform under different circumstances. You’ll also find a handy table of attachments at the bottom of the page.
Battle royale games. For a long time the RPS treehouse was unable to comprehend these chaotic, destructive influences on society. Shooters, yes, we understand. Survival games, we get it. But 100-person death marches in a shrinking zone of hate? What s so good about that? Well, this week we ve got a young person* to help us decipher this most murderous of riddles.
Your framerate seems to be affecting the rate of fire and recoil of weapons in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Youtuber WackyJacky101 has been blasting an innocent wall, for science, to see how guns behave differently at 180 fps, 60 fps, and 30 fps. The results convincingly show that for high rate-of-fire guns, such as the Groza, a lower framerate results in lower rate of fire and more manageable recoil.
The issue seems particularly severe for the Groza, but we also see how framerate changes the firing patterns of the M416 and the Vector. Slowpokes like the AKM and SCAR-L seem unaffected but, as we'll see, there's a deeper problem. WackyJacky sketches out the recoil patterns in the video below.
There has been interesting speculation as to why this is happening which has, inevitably, led to the creation of a spreadsheet. On Reddit, user MutuTutu theorises that gun performance depends on the weapon's rate of fire relative to your framerate. If your framerate is just one frame out of sync with a gun's rate of fire, the rate of fire (and therefore recoil) can be significantly affected.
For a competitive advantage it might be wise to favour certain weapons, depending on your framerate. MutuTutu looks at when this might be most useful.
"In situations where your FPS are fairly stable (for instance 80-85) and you take a high DPS% value that is at an FPS value just a little lower than that (80 in this case) this can net you with notable DPS increases (+8% with the AK here) AND a far more consistent recoil (80 and 85 give you notably different recoil speeds, locking it makes it always equal)."
For obvious reasons, this is terrible for high level competitive play if everyone is playing at different framerates. Powerful PCs will be putting out more bullets than weaker PCs.
Because the problem seems to be tied to the way the game handles firing and recoil calculations for every shot, it may be difficult to fix. There hasn't been any response to the research from Bluehole, on the blog and Twitter at least, but hopefully it's something that can be changed.
Strange things happen when game logic and framerates entwine. Recently Fallout 76 has had issues with player speed being tied to framerate. Damage-per-second in Vanquish accelerated at higher framerates, and weapon durability broke in Dark Souls 2.
A nighttime version of the snowy map Vikendi is coming Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, and today is live on the test server so we can have a peek. The moonlight variant, which is picked at random, is darker but far from pitch black, illuminated by a full moon and the rippling green aurora borealis. What a beautiful night to murder 99 people. The update will also bring a tracked snowbike to Vikendi, as well as a new submachine gun to Vikendi and Erangel.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ new snow map, Vikendi, has been given some extra attention today. Along with bug fixes and quality of life tweaks, you’ll be able to get your hands on a new weapon, new attachment and the nimble snowbike. Vikendi’s loot balance has also been changed, and you can see how that will affect weapon spawns in this developer letter.
The flashiest new addition to PUBG’s chilly map is the snowbike. If you want to run circles around snowmobiles, this is your best bet. It’s quick, has better mobility, but this comes at a cost: it’s very easy to blow up. It replaces the motorcycle, which will no longer spawn on Vikendi.
And what better time to take your new bike for a spin than the dead of night. Vikendi’s new weather setting lets players duke it out underneath a shining moon and the striking aurora borealis, which should make everyone a bit easier to spot. And shoot.
Why not use the new SMG to light up the night even more? The Bizon is an exclusive 9mm SMG for Vikendi and Erangel. It’s joined by a new weapon attachment, the canted sight, which is designed for weapons with a secondary scope slot, including the Bizon. The full list of weapons you can use it for are below.
Performance has also been optimised by reducing the number of footprints shown around the player. There are some minor UI and UX changes, too, as well as a new BattleStat weapon skin that records the number of players killed. The full list of bug fixes can be read here.
The update is currently available on the test server.
We're currently going through a patch of cold weather in Britain - and the same can be said for PUBG, which is releasing another update focused on its snow map.
The notes for PC update 25 are now on Steam, and detail a variety of new additions and quality of life changes. There are new vehicles, weapons, weather systems, a major loot rebalance, and some great quality of life changes. Along with the usual long list of bug squashing, of course.
For now, the update is only live on test servers, but should hop over to public servers soon - if all goes to plan.
