Player Unknown Battlegrounds [Xbox One] Early Impressions

*Please note that Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG) is in the Game Preview program on Xbox Live and not in full release.

One of the biggest games to take the PC world by storm was Player Unknown Battlegrounds. It quickly developed a massive following among some of the most popular streamers like Mr. Grimmmz and Kate Stark. Originally developed as a mod for other games, Player Unknown Battlegrounds is a survival Battle Royale game where 100 players are dropped off on an island. There they have to search for weapons, vehicles, first aid and protective gear. As the game goes on, the play area shrinks and any player left outside dies. Last one standing wins.

Before diving deeper into these impressions, I want to talk about more of the interesting aspects of Player Unknown Battlegrounds. First off, there is no aim assist within the game. What does this mean for you? This means players need to rely much more heavily on their skill level. On a PC with a mouse and keyboard, this can be a bit easier. However, on an Xbox One with a controller, this can be a bit more challenging. Player Unknown Battlegrounds also allows players to jump into a game solo, as a duo, or with three other people to form a squad. In these team cases, last person standing on a team means a win for the entire team. After a game ends (either by death or by win) players are rewarded with in-game currency to purchase crates that contain cosmetic items. The amount of currency is based on how long players stay alive, how many kills they get, and how much damage was dealt to other players.

At this time the game Player Unknown Battlegrounds is currently in Xbox Live’s Game Preview Program. This means that the game will be changing as time goes on as with any game in early access on Xbox Live. It’s Early Access, but just past a Beta phase. While on PC it’s at the 1.0 phase of release. The game clocks in at only 30 FPS on the Xbox One and feels like it is still catching up to the current PC build that many people with capable computers are able to handle. Items render in and out and the frame rate drops at times. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is the intense control scheme, which has been featured below.

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On a PC, you can map many buttons to many keys but on a controller, you are limited on your button configurations. On top of that, figuring out the right buttons to push at the right time can get overwhelming when in the heat of battle. Plenty of people have already purchased Player Unknown Battlegrounds on Xbox One, and I never had any issues getting into any games. You will never be hurting for games, and with the game being in Game Preview anytime there’s a new update, you can be sure lapsed players will return.

Player Unknown Battlegrounds still has a way to go on both PC and console; while all the intensity of Player Unknown Battlegrounds matches are kept intact, the controls feel clunky and the graphics still leave much to be desired. There has already been a patch on the Xbox One that has addressed the performance issues many are facing. So it is clear that the devs are listening to the fans. Fixing the performance issues is a great start to the clunky controls and we can hope that things will get better the further into the game’s life we get. I am excited to see this game on the Xbox One family of consoles and am very much looking forward to its full release.

Keep an eye out here on Marooners’ Rock as we continue our review throughout the game’s lifecycle.

The reviewer was given a code to download the game for review purposes.*