The new battle royale shooter Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is launching in early access.
Brendan Greene, better known as Player Unknown, started as a modder for Arma and created the “Battle Royale” mode there. This is a concept from the Japanese novel “Battle Royale,” which was later adapted into a film. The “Hunger Games” are also based on this idea of a massive and chaotic battle.
It is a fight “everyone against everyone,” where the area being fought in is getting smaller. The outer regions crumble away, turning into a death zone, either through toxic gas, fires, natural disasters, or other mechanisms. Fighters grab weapons or other scattered items (also loot from killed opponents) and go after each other until everything culminates in a final fight in the center of the map: only one can survive.
This mode is currently popular on Twitch, and many different games have adapted it over the years. These often became the popular “Steam formats,” where prize money is also at stake. Games like ARK: Survival Evolved and H1Z1 rely on this mode.
Player Unknown, the founder of this battle royale idea, has now realized this mode in his own game, which bears his name. And Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds is about to hit early access on PC. It is being developed by Bluehole, the creators behind Tera. The previous betas have already garnered some attention on Twitch.
What you need to know for the early access launch of Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds
The most important information for the early access launch:
- The release date for early access is March 23.
- The current closed beta ends on March 19.
- The standard edition is available for $30 on this website (link to the Battlegrounds page).
The English-speaking PC Gamer has received a trailer for the game.
Currently trending is also the H1Z1 version of this battle royale, which was also designed by Brendan Greene. It even made its way to television:
H1Z1 fails as a zombie MMO, triumphs with $300,000 TV tournament
