1. PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS
  2. News

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS News

PUBG is free to play through this weekend

While it wasn't technically the first, and it's certainly no longer the biggest, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds is the game that really put battle royale on the map, and if you haven't tried it out, this weekend is your chance. Now through Monday you can play PUBG free of charge, and if you decide to buy it, you'll get a 50% discount.


The PUBG Free Play Weekend event kicked off Thursday evening and runs through Monday at 17:00 BST / 12:00 EST / 9:00 PST. During that time, anyone can download and play PUBG for free through Steam, and the game is on sale for half off at $14.99 USD / £13.49.


PUBG has seen some major enhancements lately, including a new ranked mode - although a recent snafu saw it lose about 30 minutes' worth of ranked data. That appears to have been resolved, although the data for that time is lost to the ether. If you're a newbie, you may find that you're facing off against bots rather than seasoned PUBG vets, and that's thanks to the recent 7.1 update.


Read the rest of the story...


RELATED LINKS:

PUBG update 7.3 lets you bail out of exploding vehicles before they go bang

PUBG's RP issue now "corrected", but around 30 minutes' lost ranked match data is "unrecoverable"

PUBG's next update adds Ranked Mode, weapon balance tweaks, and bots


PUBG's RP issue now "corrected", but around 30 minutes' lost ranked match data is "unrecoverable"

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds recently got a ranked mode for the first time, giving the game an all-new competitive edge. As can sometimes happen in online multiplayer games, it seems PUBG's experienced a couple of hiccups this week, with ranked match results not recording correctly and players unable to access the in-game lobby. It seems the issues have now been fixed - but it appears around 30 minutes of ranked match data has been lost, and it's "unrecoverable".


That's according to a post on the battle royale game's support Twitter channel announcing that, for PC, "We have corrected the total Ranked Points of players whose Ranked Mode matches returned incorrect RP gains after some matches yesterday." This follows a tweet explaining there had been an issue where "Ranked Points are not properly calculated after the match".


Following this, and linking to a June 4 post announcing the rollout of emergency server maintenance to solve "an ongoing issue preventing players from accessing the game lobby", the PUBG support channel explains: "Please be aware, that for a brief period of approximately 30 minutes prior to emergency maintenance yesterday [June 4], an error prevented Ranked Match results from recording correctly.


Read the rest of the story...


RELATED LINKS:

PUBG is free to play through this weekend

PUBG's next update adds Ranked Mode, weapon balance tweaks, and bots

PUBG bots are coming in update 7.1 - but not for veterans


Dev Letter: Anti-cheat actions




Last month, we released update 7.2, which brought the long-awaited Ranked Mode to the Battlegrounds.

While we were expecting some cheaters to emerge in this mode, we’d hoped our new safeguards such as SMS verification would help prevent it. Unfortunately, this did not have the effect we’d hoped for and additional countermeasures will now have to be added.

Ranked games depend heavily on the reliability of the service, so today we’d like to talk about what we’re doing to improve our anti-cheat safeguards and increase our ban intensity.

  • Preliminary Measures – When players use cheats in a match, we will utilize immediate countermeasures to minimize the impact on legitimate players.
    • Additionally, we will improve the system to immediately ban the kicked user.
    • If the cheat used is easy for game logic to recognize, we will kick the cheater in real time. (This has already been applied as of June 3rd, 2020.)
  • Post Measures – Cheaters use sophisticated methods to get around systems designed to stop them, so we’re also reinforcing additional measures to help our efforts.
    • We have analyzed the patterns of players who unfairly raise their rank and have added logic to quickly detect and automatically ban the perpetrators.
    • We are dedicating more people to Leaderboard monitoring to ban the players who climb the leaderboard through unfair methods.
    • We will monitor the top ranked players constantly and will not let cheaters stay on the leaderboard for long. We will even be monitoring players’ results, even previous results, if there is any doubt.
    • We are making sure that any players who receive bans cannot be listed on the Leaderboard. (This has already been applied as of June 3rd, 2020.)
    • We will expand the range of monitoring on any users in doubt.
    • We will also be banning cheaters by analyzing the cheats that falsify gun-based logs.
    • We’ve begun to implement a greater number of hardware bans by improving the hardware ban system. (This has already been applied as of June 3rd, 2020.)
    • A mobile authenticator later this year.


If these measures still do not have the impact we expect, we have other measures we are ready to introduce, including increased ban durations against repetitive wrongdoers and raising the entry bar for Ranked mode to make it more difficult for cheaters with new accounts to re-enter Ranked Mode.

We’re thrilled so many of you are loving Ranked Mode and we hate cheaters just as much as you do. As long as there is money to be made from these cheat programs, the problem will never stop, but we’re dedicated to fighting this issue as fiercely as we can. We want the same thing you do, a fair and fun environment where you can show off your skills and see where you stand in Battlegrounds history.

Thank you.

PUBG Free Weekend Starts Now




Hi everyone,

The PUBG Free Play Weekend kicks off today, giving everybody the chance to play PUBG for the next 4 days completely free! On top of the free time, players who choose to purchase the game this weekend can do so at a 50% discount. Here’s what you can expect from the event:

[h3]Free Play Weekend & 50% Off Event[/h3]
  • Event Schedule: 06-04-2020 17:00 UTC ~ 06-08-2020 17:00 UTC
  • During the event, everyone will be able to play PUBG for free
  • During the event, PUBG will be on sale for 50% off
  • Players participating in the PUBG Free Play Weekend who have not purchased the game won't have access to the in-game store


With recent major updates to our maps and the all-new Ranked Mode, now’s the best time to drop in and try the game that defined the Battle Royale genre. Already own PUBG? Grab some friends who have yet to take the plunge and treat your new squad to a free chicken dinner.

Promotions like this usually come with some questions, so we’ve prepared a short FAQ to answer what we can so you can focus on getting into the game and having fun with your friends.

We’ll see you on the Battlegrounds!

-

[h3]FAQ[/h3]

How long does the event last?
  • The PUBG Free Play Weekend will be open from June 4th 17:00 UTC to June 8th 17:00 UTC. During this period everyone will be able to play PUBG for free and also receive a 50% discount when purchasing the game.


Is any of the content restricted or unavailable to free players?
  • No. With exception to the in-game shop, Free Play Weekend participants will have access to the whole game, whether they own PUBG or not.
  • The in-game store will become accessible after purchasing the game.


Will earned rewards be any different for free players?
  • Free weekend players will receive the same rewards as regular players do.


Can free weekend players redeem codes for in-game items?
  • Bonus/gift codes can be only redeemed through the in-game store, which free weekend players won't have access to.


Will my progress and rewards be saved if I choose to purchase the game later?
  • All in-game rewards and achievements such as Pass rewards, BP, XP, and RP obtained during the Free Play Weekend will be saved for whenever you do purchase the game.

Who are the biggest streamers?

We all have our favourite streamers. From those that wonder the world and share their experiences in IRL streaming, to those who grind your favourite game, to those niche hidden gems creating some really unique content. However when, it comes to who is the biggest, the stats don't lie. With the streaming world's biggest stars racking up millions of hours watched each month - and making some big bucks in the process - it has become one of the fastest growing and most lucrative entertainment forms.


2020 has already seen it's fair share of big streaming news, but 2019 really was a roller coaster year for the industry. Some of the world's most followed streamers switched platforms, some saw unexpected explosions in popularity, and some of the most established streamers were overtaken by newcomers.


Here, we look past all the drama to have a statistical look at the biggest personalities this year when it comes to followers, subscribers, and earnings. Let's crunch those numbers.


Read the rest of the story...


RELATED LINKS:

Pro player says he's spoken to more Valorant devs than he ever has PUBG's

We're giving away five PS4 codes for PUBG's new survivor pass

PUBG Ranked: Ranks, RP, rulesets, and more