PUBG: Battlegrounds (formerly: PlayerUnknown’s Battleground)
Developer/Publisher: KRAFTON | Genre: Battle Royale | Steam Release: December 21, 2017 | Peak Players: 3,257,248 | Type: Multiplayer
What is PUBG? You jump out of an airplane, virtually naked, and land with 99 other players on an island. Weapons, medicine, and frying pans are hidden all over the place for you to equip.
The goal is to be the last one standing. However, you can’t just wait it out, as a circle continually closes in on the play area, forcing you into an ever-shrinking area of the map, where eventually the final showdown takes place.
PUBG: Battlegrounds, or by its original name: PlayerUnknown’s Battleground, still holds the record for the most concurrent players on Steam. Lost Ark is in the 2nd place with 1,325,305 players. PUBG is also among our best multiplayer shooters of 2022.
How did it explode? PUBG established and popularized the modern battle royale genre. As the first major shooter with this approach, it revolutionized the genre and led to a plethora of developers copying the principle.
The best and biggest example is Fortnite, which completely abandoned its original idea of “Save the World” and has developed its battle royale mode almost exclusively. It even went so far as to sue PUBG.
Later, other developers like CoD: Warzone jumped on the bandwagon, leading to even crazy offshoots like Tetris 99.
As the first major battle royale that exclusively focused on this type of play, PUBG was both a novelty and easily understandable. Many gamers were already familiar with shooters, but the entry into a battle royale is easier because all players start equally in each round.
Additionally, the “PlayerUnknown,” Brendan Greene, had previously created the popular battle royale mod for the survival game DayZ – which itself was a mod of Arma 2. His name was already known among fans of the genre before it even became a genre.
Battle royale games remain popular to this day, leading to the continuous release of successful new titles like Apex Legends. Since its release, PUBG has consistently been in the top 10 on Steam.
