PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) has recently announced that it will be giving its maps a thorough redesign in an upcoming remaster. Starting with the Erangel map, the makers of this battle royale have promised loyal fans to give each of their maps an overhaul. The reason that they’ve given us for this is to improve loot balance. Or that’s at least what they say on their website.
This sudden announcement was actually a follow up of a series of leaks on Reddit, where a user posted the supposed new map. On the subreddit, r/PUBATTLEGROUNDS, a user with the name of u/bizzfarts posted a leaked snapshot of the Erangel map and claimed it to be taken from one of the test servers. It did show some changes to the popular map that included an increased amount of “tier three” loot drop sites. Needless to say, this got users all hyped up.
PUBG, in the announcement it made following this, admitted the fact that that it’ll be upgrading their maps. However, what it contradicted was the ideology that the snapshot we saw was its final plan for the map. The exact words being, “Keep in mind that leaked images are usually just a snapshot in time and rarely represent the entire plan or scope of what’s being worked on.”
This means that the map we saw was sort of an ‘in progress’ blueprint of what is yet to come. Furthermore, it added that the developers have worked hard for this remaster and it expects us to like it. It also said that “we’re excited to test it alongside you”, which probably means that a Beta test version will be available before the official release.
Most wonder what could be the reason behind PUBG’s decision to suddenly upgrade their maps. Could it be the introduction of the new battle royale game, Apex Legends? I mean it did steal the spotlight from both PUBG and Fortnite and has been relevant ever since it came out. Maybe this was PUBG’s move to finally improve its gameplay that currently pales in comparison to Apex’s.
Whatever is the real reason behind this, we may never know. However, what we do know is that PUBG is going to get a whole lot better. Let’s just hope that this healthy competition between game developers remains so that we get the best possible gameplay regardless of the game we play.