Welcome to our guide to all of the PUBG glider spawns. One of the key risk/reward choices you need to make in any battle royale game is whether you're happy to cover long distances if that means alerting your remaining rivals. Now that the new Motor Glider has arrived for PUBG season 6, that gambit is even more acute. 

That's because this bright yellow beast is loud, but you may need to make a last-gasp choice to get yourself out of a hot zone or an area at risk of being consumed by The Circle—if you can reach the necessary speed of 70km/h to take off. You must also fill the engine before it's started, so you'll need to hold your nerve. That said, it helps that the PUBG Motor Glider is a two-seater: one of you can pilot the thing with another providing covering fire.

But even if you decide to take the risk on piloting a Motor Glider, you'll need to know where you can find them. So, to rain down battle royale death from above, here's how many PUBG glider spawns there are, and where they're located.  

How many PUBG glider spawns are there?

After a period of testing of the new vehicle, the number of locations in which you can find the glider has decreased. Originally, according to PUBG Labs, "we used to have 10 motor gliders spawned in 10 spawn locations, so 100% spawn rate on each location."

In other words, the glider spawn locations were effectively fixed, but now, once you approach a spawn point, it has a 25 percent chance of appearing now that the glider has transitioned to the live game: "We'll be changing this to 10 gliders randomly spawned in 40 spawn locations." That said, expect more testing, and potential spawn tweaks, to continue.

PUBG Motor Glider spawns

Thanks to PlayerIGN we know know the locations of all the glider spawn points. In the tweet above you can see the 40 each on Erangel and Miramar, the only two maps to feature the vehicle so far. Remember though, even if you are near one of these spots, there's only a 24 percent chance it'll be there right now. If you're lucky, buckle yourself in and enjoy an airborne chicken dinner on me.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' sixth season is due to begin soon, but ahead of its launch you can take it for a spin in the test server, along with Karain, a new fast-paced 64-player map. Check out some footage of the map in action above. 

Karakin is a 2x2km map with five settlements on the coast and loads of big open spaces where you'll inevitably be sniped in front of a Twitch audience. PUBG Corp says you can expect Miramar's tension but the speed of Sanhok. The map's twist is that it's dynamic, featuring a random 'Black Zone' that transforms the areas it strikes. 

When an area ends up in the Black Zone, buildings can be damaged or completely destroyed, turning somewhere once full of cover and buildings into a ruined wasteland. You'll have time to escape once you hear the siren, so you'll be able to survive even if the buildings can't. To add to the destruction, Karakin also features breach points that can be destroyed by sticky bombs, an item only available on the island. Breach points aren't just found on walls, either, so you can pull off some fancy assaults by coming in via the ceiling, surprising campers. Some walls can be penetrated by bullets, too.

To add to the destruction, Karakin also features breach points that can be destroyed by sticky bombs, an item only available on the island. Breach points aren't just found on walls, either, so you can pull off some fancy assaults by coming in via the ceiling, surprising campers. Some walls can be penetrated by bullets, too.

PUBG's first flying vehicle, which players have been able to test in PUBG Labs, has also been added to Karakin, letting you soar above the chaos and, if you've brought a friend, they can rain down death and destruction while you pilot the thing. Pilots can also score some kills with skilful use of the vehicle's rotor blades.

There's also a new Survivor Pass, Shakedown, some matchmaking changes and other tweaks you can check out in the patch notes.

A new feature is being tested out in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, specifically in PUBG Labs, which players will be able to put through its paces all weekend. Finally, PUBG is experimenting with flying vehicles. 

All you'll need to sacrifice is your dignity, as you obliterate your foes while floating in something that looks less cool than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But you're still flying! That's the important thing, and nobody can take that away from you. Unless you get shot down. 

The motor glider has room for a pilot and passenger, and it spawns around the map like other vehicles, though presumably it will be less common. You'll also need plenty of room for take-off, which requires the glider to hit 65km/h first. You'll need to keep an eye on your fuel, too, which will drain faster when you apply more throttle. 

If you're piloting, you'll need to rely on your passenger to kill other players, but you could get a few kills yourself if you manage to hit a player with the rotor on the back of the glider. And if all the death gets too much for you, just keep going up into the clouds and escape the mayhem. The only limit to how high you can go is your fuel.

The glider is available now in PUBG Labs, specifically for squads in Erangel and Miramar, but will disappear on December 23.  

"I hope you die of AIDS," yells the corpse of the player I just killed. It's 2015 and I'm playing my 7th match of H1Z1: King of the Kill, the battle royale mode that will later become a standalone game just called H1Z1 (and later still, Z1 Battle Royale). I've been aware of the battle royale mod for Arma 3 for a while—I love watching streamers play it—but I've never played BR myself until today. And it's giving me everything I haven't been able to find in H1Z1's standard and sloppy Early Access survival mode: urgency, excitement, and a genuine reason to care about surviving.

Before I get a chance to die of AIDS I'm gunned down by another player. "Aw, that sucks so bad for you," he mocks, but then quickly adds, "Good job, though." And I agree. I've done a good job! In my earlier matches the best I've done is 32nd place among the 80 or so other solo players. But this time I've placed 12th. I lasted almost to the end and I had three kills. I didn't win, but I just discovered an important facet of BR: you don't always need to win to feel good. You just need to do better than you did last time.

A couple years later I'll turn on a Major League Baseball game and see Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts performing the "Take the L" emote after a stand-up double. Ninja is streaming with Drake, appears on Jimmy Fallon and Ellen, and plays at Lollapalooza. Perhaps most telling, my 78-year-old mother who never reads my writing on PC Gamer because "I don't understand it" asks me if I play the game she's been hearing about on the news: Fortnite. Battle royale is everywhere.

Fight for the crown

Fortnite took quite a while to become Fortnite. It was revealed way back in 2011 at the VGAs, but years of delays meant it didn't actually appear until 2017, and then only in Early Access where it didn't get a particularly stellar reception (our review was scored at 55%). It also didn't have a BR mode: it was a co-op base builder-shooter. But during all those years while Fortnite was struggling to see the light of day, the battle royale genre was slowly forming alongside it. There was the 2012 Minecraft plugin called Hunger Games (later Survival Games), where players gathered weapons and fought to be the last one standing. Brendan Greene developed BR mods for Arma 2 and Arma 3, which took the survival elements of DayZ and created more conflict by forcing players together with a shrinking playable area. And finally there was H1Z1: King of the Kill, from Daybreak Games, which Greene consulted on.

KotK was a huge hit, selling a million copies within two months of its Early Access launch, going on to sell millions more over the next couple of years, launching a healthy pro esports scene and even a televised tournament (Ninja was there) in 2017. At roughly the same time, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was leaving beta after a short development cycle at South Korean publisher Bluehole. After playing the beta I declared PUBG "could have a bright future" which I felt proud for identifying early and then massively embarrassed about for the sheer, hilarious understatement of it all. PUBG completely blew the doors off gaming, climbed to the top of the most-played list on Steam, surpassing and then destroying Dota's record for concurrent players. PUBG sold over 40 million copies within its first year. 

I'll spare you the Fortnite recap. Everyone knows all about it. Even my mom.

Building a hit

For players and viewers, it was easy to get hooked on the unpredictable cycle of BR. The random nature of the mode kept things exciting, with luck determining whether you'd wind up surrounded by other players the moment your boots hit the ground, the type and quality of the gear you'd find, and how far you'll have to travel to stay within the playable area. There's the slow build of tension as the borders of the map shrink, each burst of distant gunfire snapping your eyes to the corner of the screen to see names of killed players, signifying you're just that much closer to being the last one standing. A round of BR is an evolving and surprising half-hour story for both the player and the viewer, taking us from an empty-handed landing to a fully geared-up finale.

BR rewards the most highly skilled players, but anyone can win a round. The odds are stacked very heavily against it, but as long as you survive until everyone else is dead, you don't need to fire a single shot or score a single kill to come out on top. Hide in a house or disguise yourself as a bush of just crouch behind a rock in the cloud of poison gas while frantically applying first-aid, and you can win. It's a tantalizing prospect for new players—winning a shooter even if you suck at shooting.

For developers and publishers, battle royale had become a new brass ring to reach for. Its simple concept is alluring: make a map, randomly scatter gear across it, drop players into it, and shrink the playable area to create conflicts. Plus, the short development cycle for PUBG (roughly a year) and especially for Fortnite—after seven long years to bring Fortnite to players, Epic Games put its world-conquering battle royale mode together in only two friggin' months—makes it even more appealing. Battle royale seems like a simple game you can throw together quickly and potentially make a fortune with.

The industry was off to the races. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Battlefield 5, GTA Online, CS:GO, Dota 2, Civ 6, Dying Light, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and even Fallout 76 all wound up with battle royale modes. Indie standalone BR games like The Culling, Darwin Project, Fear the Wolves, Realm Royale, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, and dozens more cropped up within a year or two. Boss Key Productions quickly threw together a free-to-play BR game, Radical Heights, hoping to keep the studio afloat after the failure of its arena shooter, Lawbreakers.

But success in BR is elusive and a winning formula isn't simple—just deceptively simple. Despite the massive success stories of Fortnite and PUBG, battle royale, like the MOBA genre, reinforced the notion that there's only room for two or three winners atop a podium.

Players and streamers might briefly divert into a new BR mode or standalone game out of curiosity, but quickly return to Fortnite or PUBG. Several BR games (including the flagging Z1 Battle Royale) switched to free-to-play models after failing to draw enough players in with paid versions, but even that didn't make them popular. Radical Heights, which featured BMX bike backflips and a game show presentation, couldn't save Boss Key Productions, which closed a mere month later. Call of Duty: Blackout and Battlefield 5: Firestorm were enjoyed by players but just didn't stick. Time and again streamers would return to Fortnite and PUBG and players seemed to follow their lead. In 2019, only the free-to-play Apex Legends really stands out as a big new success in BR, and still quickly drew complaints from players who wanted more frequent updates along the type Fortnite provides.

Making a good BR game isn't nearly as easy as it sounds, and even when one appears it doesn't mean it's crossed the finish line. Really, it's just reached a new starting line thanks to Fortnite, which has set a nearly impossible standard for games as a service with its frequent updates, new features, in-game events, tournament prizes, and bulky season passes. Fortnite shut itself off for two entire days this year as a marketing stunt. No one else could get away with that.

BR will continue to dominate the industry over the next decade on the backs of PUBG and Fortnite, but the battle royale gold rush that defined the last half of the decade is over. Look at E3 in 2018 and you'll see a half-dozen big BR announcements. In 2019, there was just a single small one: Fallout 76's BR mode. Plenty of developers and publishers will continue to try to crack the BR code, naturally, but they've learned a few hard lessons. The brass ring is still there, but it's not quite as shiny or as easy to grab as it used to seem.

Starting now, you can ruin your fellow players' leisurely car trips across the map in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds with a handy new spike trap. I dread to think how much more messy bridge crossings are going to become. 

Update 5.2's spike traps, not surprisingly, puncture tires, and you'll be able to find them scattered over the maps, waiting to be added to your arsenal. Once you plonk them down, however, you won't be able to pick them up again, and they only affect a single vehicle each. 

This means you won't be able to just grab a spike trap and become a bridge troll for the rest of the match. You'll need to find multiple spike traps if you want to ambush more than just one car. 

5.2 also introduces a map waypoint system that lets you place up to four waypoints on the map for your team to follow. It's not nearly as flashy as spike traps, but it's probably going to get a lot more use. PUBG is all about cautious, methodical trips through places where any number of threats could be hiding, so getting everyone on the same page and being able to more clearly direct your pals sounds like a massive boon. 

Vikendi's been tweaked, too, with PUBG Corp making a bunch of changes that should make snipers happy. The windows on some buildings have been reduced to provide snipers with more cover, and there will be better sight lines in cities and popular areas thanks to the removal of some buildings, trees, rocks and debris.

Players will also be able to start delving into PUBG Labs. It's a new way for the developers to test content on willing guinea pigs, dropping experimental features and settings into the Labs menu where players can access them and play around with them in the live client. You can find out more about how PUBG Labs works in the introduction post. 

Update 5.2 is out now.

PUBG's loot box system is getting an overhaul, with locked crates set to be removed altogether. Not unlike CS:GO's system, these locked crates have always required a key to purchase, and keys can only be obtained with real world money: they cost $2.50 in-game, and at variable rates on the Steam Marketplace. But come December 18 they'll be obsolete.

This means all crate contents can now be unlocked using PUBG's BP currency, which is rewarded by the playing the game, unless you choose to purchase crates via the Steam Marketplace.

In a dev letter on the PUBG website, the changes are explained in detail. Random crate purchases with BP will no longer have the chance to contain locked crates starting from December 18. Locked crates already owned will still operate in the same way into the future. The dev letter confirms that the probability of receiving locked crates has been "continuously" lowered for a while now, but since this hasn't solved the problem, they're nixing them altogether.

"The value of marketable loot box in PUBG is solely determined by the users and getting items through the marketplace or selling them back is also part of the PUBG experience," the update reads. "However, the value of the locked crates are very low among other PUBG items. This means that paid crates are not an appealing reward to players, making the experience of acquiring a locked crate less enjoyable."

The statement continues: "We have been thinking about this carefully and we want to ensure that we steer clear of revenue models that fail to satisfy fans, especially if they include a low success rate. We will continue to tweak our business model where possible to offer more compelling value for the money you choose to spend with us."

As for changes to BP crates, "more preferred skins" will appear in lower tiers, and AR category skins will be "evenly distributed" between all tiers of crate. Meanwhile, the "overall graphic quality" of crate skins has been improved, and the likelihood of obtaining middle tier crates has been increased by 20 percent. The top-tier crates are still hard to get (the statement doesn't specify the odds) but "they will still remain difficult to obtain".

Locked crates will no longer be available in PUBG beginning December 18, but they'll still be purchasable on the Steam Marketplace if they already exist, and keys will only be purchasable if a locked crate is in your inventory. On November 20 a new Venetian Crate will be released and will be available for a week. Details on that crate are on the website.

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds is no stranger to regular updates (you can keep up with the patch notes on our PUBG updates page) and an upcoming one may add a clan system to the game. 

A frequent dataminer known as PlayerIGN who previously predicted the PUBG Global Championship skins has returned with more datamined information and some leaked images. According to the images PlayerIGN tweeted out listing the information gathered, clans will be able to have a title, slogan, and a max number of 20 members.

If you're curious, here's the rest of the character limit and more detailed information that PlayerIGN posted:

• Cost: 5000 BP (Battle Points)
• Title: 2-15 character limit
• Tag: 2-4 character limit
• Slogan: 30 character limit
• Presentation: 180 character limit
• Members: 20 limit

Clans will also be able to receive resumes from recruits, though whether those will be custom-created in some way by players or just an automatic form with their name and stats we don't know.

PUBG added a clan system to the mobile version of the game back in July of 2018 so it doesn't come as a huge surprise that this update might make its way to PC. The bigger question is when this supposed feature might make it into an update. 

Thanks, Loadout.

PUBG Lite, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' free-to-play, low-spec cousin, has been in open beta since January, but PUBG Corp has been releasing it in stages, initially just in Thailand. Next week it will get quite a bit closer to releasing globally, however, adding 52 more countries to the beta. 

Russia, CIS and European countries will be able to fire up PUBG even on laptops with integrated graphics cards, at the cost of fidelity. The beta version doesn't feature all of the regular game's maps yet, though the team, which is separate from the PUBG team, plans to add more over time.  

There's already a free-to-play version in the form of PUBG Mobile, but that comes with a whole other set of differences, including a redesigned HUD and controls. PUBG Lite sounds like it will be essentially identical to the original game, aside from the business model and system requirements. 

"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," last year's announcement read. 

PUBG Lite's open beta will expand on October 10, and you can check out the list of countries here.

PlayerUnknown's Battleground 4.3 update went live this week, introducing the new Survival Mastery system and a bunch of shotgun changes. PUBG Corp also added a bunch of Halloween skins to the store, including a lion who is far, far too happy about jumping into a war zone. 

The Leo Jumpsuit lets you dress up as a lion (and then dress that lion up), but it's not all wholesome family fun. See, Leo has a tail, and that tail doesn't naturally flop around like you'd expect—it's a bit stiff. This is especially noticeable when you're dropping into a game, at which point the tail appears between your legs. 

Yes, that's a lion with his cock out. 

PUBG Corp says it removed the skin to resolve an issue, though what issue wasn't specified.

"Please be aware that the "Leo Jumpsuit" is temporarily unavailable for purchase as we work to resolve an issue related to this skin," PUBG Support tweeted. "Any players who have already purchased the skin will have their BP refunded."

C'mon PUBG Corp, just admit it's because there's been some accidental lion willy.

Cheers, PCGamesN.

PlayerUnknown's Battleground 4.3 update went live this week, introducing the new Survival Master system and a bunch of shotgun changes. PUBG Corp also added a bunch of Halloween skins to the store, including a lion who is far, far too happy about jumping into a war zone. 

The Leo Jumpsuit lets you dress up as a lion (and then dress that lion up), but it's not all wholesome family fun. See, Leo has a tail, and that tail doesn't naturally flop around like you'd expect—it's a bit stiff. This is especially noticeable when you're dropping into a game, at which point the tail appears between your legs. 

Yes, that's a lion with his cock out. 

PUBG Corp says it removed the skin to resolve an issue, though what issue wasn't specified.

"Please be aware that the "Leo Jumpsuit" is temporarily unavailable for purchase as we work to resolve an issue related to this skin," PUBG Support tweeted. "Any players who have already purchased the skin will have their BP refunded."

C'mon PUBG Corp, just admit it's because there's been some accidental lion willy.

Cheers, PCGamesN.