Playerunknown's Battlegrounds Beta Impressions

Player Unknown Battlegrounds is a 100 player Battle Royale game set on a remote island. You drop in by a plane and will have to keep yourself in the safe zone while eliminating enemy players in the process and surviving every encounter you come across.

The game has you start off in a plane with your fellow contestants, quickly arriving over the map that for the next twenty to thirty minutes will be your home and likely your grave. After dropping out of the plane, contestants have the choice of venturing to any place of the map they want. With different locations offering a variety of weapons and items, you may find an absolute gold mine or a dead spot. Hopefully, it will be the first so that you can begin to build an arsenal of items. Features include a host of different locations such as a church, a quarry, a water village, or the military base. No matter the terrain items need to be found fast to survive. This is where the adrenaline starts pumping as these first items you find could either save you, or make you face an early grave and exit out of the game. With 100 player matches danger is situated everywhere and the first five to ten minutes of a match usually sees about half of the loby killed. With the remainder slowly dying off throughout the rest of the match.

You can arm yourself with two primary weapons, secondary weapon, and any type of grenade. it’s best to get a rifle of some sort and have a back-up close range gun or shotgun for close combat fire fights. Often a shotgun can save you from certain death as you can be taken by surprise by a player looting the same building your in. Finding armor, a back pack and medical supplies are also key in surviving through to the later stages of the game.

Like other Battle Royale games on the market right now, each match begins by being dropped down onto the map via parachute. The difference with Battlegrounds is that matches start within the bay of a large cargo plane along side with all the other player's. The plane gradually flies over the gigantic 4 km map and allowing players to jump out and parachute down to any area they choose. This offers players with an interesting strategic layer that games such as H1Z1 King of the Kill and the Arma 3 mods don’t. You can either choose to drop down to larger clusters of buildings which may contain more weapons and gear for survival equipment or out into less populated buildings. If you drop down into a high value areas, you’ll assuredly have lots of company since many of the other players will probably do so as well, leading to more immediate conflict. On the other hand, dropping down into a forest can allow you to stay better concealed while the other players kill each other off. This in turn can allow you to strike more clandestinely, albeit usually with less firepower.

Battlegrounds features a pretty solid hit detection system. I’ve shot someone in the head with my rifle, only to knock their helmet right off their head because of its protection value vs bullet caliber. The weapons in the game also feel weighty and substantial, rather than airy and floaty as they do in other shooter-focused games. Finally, all of the vehicles respond well to steering controls, although I’d recommend using a gaming pad rather than a mouse and keyboard set-up while driving.

The game also features solo play, 2 player teams or up to 4 player squad mode. There’s nothing like trying to decide where you want to land with others, as well as coordinating attacks, ambushes, and other tactical considerations.

Battlegrounds is one of the most fun survival shooter games that I’ve played in quite some time. It features excellent and solid gunplay elements, exceptional graphics, and with an elusive rush that comes with not knowing how a match is going to turnout or who you will in counter. Although it’s still in its Alpha phase, it looks to have a great future and set to take over the growing Battle Royale scene.

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Impressions Made on Playerunknown's Battlegrounds during Beta