Jan 11, 2022
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - Sheepy
Hello Survivors!
The day we’ve all been waiting for is finally here: we are now free-to-play!
We’re excited to welcome our new players, greet our returning players, and continue to provide the best service to our current players.
But before you dive right in, take a moment to remind yourself of important free-to-play details shown below that will be helpful for your best battle royale experience.
Free-to-Play Updates
- BATTLEGROUNDS Plus
- New players will start out with a free Basic account which will have access to most in-game content. However, you can upgrade to BATTLEGROUNDS Plus anytime to unlock features only for BATTLEGROUNDS Plus!
- Perks for Current Players
- Returning and current players who already purchased the game before the free-to-play transition will not only have their accounts automatically upgraded to BATTLEGROUNDS Plus, but they will also receive a bundle of rewards, the PUBG – SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE PACK.
We also have several Drops events prepared! Complete in-game missions, invite friends to PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, and watch our Partners’ stream to earn rewards.
The event schedules for both PC and Console platforms are as follows:
- Special Drops 1: F2P Grand Open Event
- PST: January 11, 7 AM – January 31, 11 PM
- CET: January 11, 4 PM – February 1, 8 AM
- KST: January 12, 0 AM – February 1, 4 PM
- Special Drops 2: Friend Invitation and Referral Code Event
- PST: January 11, 7 AM – February 8, 4 PM
- CET: January 11, 4 PM – February 9, 1 AM
- KST: January 12, 0 AM – February 9, 9 AM
- Partner Drops
- PST: January 11, 11 PM – January 25, 3:59 PM
- CET: January 12, 8 AM – January 26, 0:59 AM
- KST: January 12, 4 PM – January 26, 8:59 AM
Check out the Special & Partner Drops – January 2022 (link here) for more information on our events.
And last but definitely not least, we have a handful of new in-game features introduced in our latest 15.2 Update:
- Tactical Gear: Drone
- Drones on the Battlegrounds! Hold the Drone Tablet, enter Drone View, and scout a far distance without facing the risk of direct combat.
- Tactical Gear: EMT Gear
- Obtain various healing boosts for both yourself and your teammates with the new EMT Gear!
- New Mode: Tutorials
- We’ve added two in-game tutorial modes – Basic Training Mode and AI Training Match – to further enrich the gameplay experience for our players.
For more information on the features above and on even more new features in both in-game and the lobby itself, read the full PC & Console Patch Notes – Update 15.2.
See you on the Battlegrounds.
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Team
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Hello Survivors!As you’ve no doubt heard by now, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS is going free-to-play on January 12, 2022! While this is certainly an exciting time, we know that there are often important questions that pop up with such a transition. Namely, how will we address cheaters in a free-to-play game?Anti-cheat is always a critical priority, but with Free-to-Play incoming, the need for an effective anti-cheat system is more important than ever as banned accounts can easily and infinitely be replaced.To that end, we've been quietly, yet fiercely, preparing a number of countermeasures to combat cheat programs. That said, anti-cheat is always a never-ending fight and nothing we or anyone can do will ever completely stomp out cheating in competitive online games..In this Dev Letter, we’re going to dive in and talk more about what we've been building in 2021, how our anti-cheat situation is looking today, and what we have in store for the future.
Anti-Cheat Analysis During Free Play WeekPreviously, we ran two Free Play Week events - one in 2020 and one in 2021. While great marketing for the game, these weekends also gave us valuable insight into our anti-cheat capabilities in a Free-to-Play environment.During our June 2020 Free Play Week event, the ratio of suspected cheaters skyrocketed, especially when looking at Normal Matches. However, during the August 2021 Free Play Week event, the ratio of suspected cheaters spiked after the event started but eventually recovered and settled in line with the numbers we had before the event, marking another promising victory for Zakytnthos.
Cheater Reports in Ranked MatchesAs reports from players in the upper ranks who claimed to have encountered more and more cheaters came in, our team studied the report rate data for each Rank Points range. The graph below shows that the report rate was relatively high early this year, but it gradually fell as we reinforced our anti-cheat solutions over the months. We do realize that not every rate has greatly improved, but it is a promising start and we are planning to strengthen our anti-cheat solutions even further.