While the very clearly broken state of the Xbox One version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds hasn’t stopped players from enjoying the Battle Royale title as they continue to muddle through the Xbox Game Preview phase, players will be happy to know that the first patch to launch for the platform is targeted at many things, but the biggest news is that visuals should be improved dramatically.

The patch notes, which you can find just below, outline many tweaks and improvements. Aside from the above mentioned visual and performance improvements and a better anti-aliasing on old Xbox One family systems, they also disable the keyboard functionality that we previously reported on and retouched the UI as well as squash some bugs.

Even in the preview state, the Xbox version of the game saw a staggering 1 million players seeking their first chicken dinner within 48 hours of launch. Recently as well, the PC version hit the 3 Million concurrent user milestone. While Xbox players will be in Game Preview for awhile yet, the PC version launches out of early access very soon.

Gameplay

Gas can now be used while on bike or bike with sidecar

UI/UX

• Equipment icons on HUD will now be visible
• Player icon is now more clearly visible on the world map
• UI prompts now appear when reload and enter a vehicle options are present

Character

Tweaked hair color options

Animation

• Cleaned up sidecar passenger animations in first person view
• Fixed player camera issues while a passenger on the backseat of a Buggy
• Addressed arm animations specific to holding some weapons
• Character now correctly faces the proper direction when stopping while swimming

Others

• First pass visual and performance improvements
• Slightly improved anti-aliasing on Xbox One and Xbox One S
• Localization updates for Vietnamese, Spanish,(Spain/Mexico)
• Controls on motorcycle no longer inverted
• Keyboard functionality is disabled

Bug Fixes

• Fixed instances of player nametags not properly displaying in the lobby during Squad and Duo play
• Fixed minor animation while crouching and prone
• Fixed issues where curtains on windows block line of sight of players in the TPP mode
• Fixed an issue where when Squad leader left the party, voice chat ceased to function as intended
• Fixed issue where players could lean out of vehicles even when obstructed
• Fixed collision of cardboard boxes in Yasnaya city
• Fixed typo in the controller guide
• Other minor fixes

Sony Interactive Entertainment has a new video to show off to fans patiently waiting for the Shadow of the Colossus remaster, featuring some gameplay of the rebuilt title and commentary from Bluepoint Games, who detail how they’re rebuilding this cult classic in the shadow of its giant original release.

Bluepoint’s Art Director, Mark Skelton, Co-Founder Marco Thrush and Technical Director Peter Dalton all swap off with their commentary on the video, talking about how the environments have been rebuilt from scratch from the template of the dated PS2 original, maintaining the massive scale the game is known for, and adding in new animations and a physics system for fabrics and hair that would have simply melted the PS2, which already struggled with the game.

You can see the video below and challenge your nostalgia. When Shadow of the Colossus hits PlayStation 4 in February they can expect a vision of the game that’s true to the PS2 original free from the constraints of the technology of the time, right down to the original 16 bosses.

In spite of recent reports that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the hit multiplayer battle royale sensation that has made so many waves on PC in Early Access, will be running in 60fps on the Xbox One X once it launches on Xbox in Game Preview next month, it seems like the game will end up sticking to a 30fps framerate after all.

Speaking on Twitter, Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ Greene clarified that the game will run at 30fps on Xbox One and Xbox One X, both. He said that while they will continue to work on refining the game and its code, he is currently unable to commit to anything more than 30 frames for all Xbox devices.

On the one hand, it’s a bummer that the game won’t run at 60 frames; on the other, it’s not a game that needs 60fps to begin with, being slower paced than twitch shooters, and this also means that all Xbox players will be on an even footing.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds launches on December 12 on Xbox One.

https://twitter.com/PLAYERUNKNOWN/status/936579121320099844

The biggest sensation of this year has been PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the multiplayer battle royale title that launched in Early Access on Steam unassumingly earlier this year, and then went on to break just about every single record in the book from there on.

Now here’s another milestone it passed, another feather in its cap- sales of the game on Steam are now past 22 million, just two weeks after it hit 20 million earlier this year (reinforcing the notion that it sells roughly a million copies a week)- hugely impressive, especially when you consider that the game is technically still in Early Access.

With the release on Xbox just a few weeks away, all eyes are on it now- will it manage to blaze as many trails on console as it did on PC? Let’s hope that that happens- Microsoft could use a major hit like this being exclusive to their console, after all.

The smash hit that came out of nowhere, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has been taking over the multiplayer discussions of 2017 without actually technically being a launched game. But Bluehole and the team are gearing up for that big 1.0 launch with another test server this week.

PC players can try out the first official “finished” (or at least as finished as an ongoing multiplayer game like this can be) version on a test server till November 24. Next weeks times are to be announced soon.

Those who try the test build can play in solo or squad modes and get a feel for a ton of new features like vaulting, a new UI and damage rebalancing. PC gamers won’t be the only ones to enjoy their chicken dinners, with the game projected to launch on Xbox One very soon, with further Xbox One X enhancements.

Patch notes below:

Optimization

• Optimize character animations
• Added LODs to further optimize weapon rendering for long distance
• Optimized various world effects
• Optimized various UI elements
• Optimized the sea by reducing wave effects
• Decreased terrain loading time
• Decrease memory usage of characters

Animation

• Additional vaulting animation for objects with a height of approx. 60 cm or lower (when holding down the Shift key)
• Greatly reduced jacket/coat clipping issue when moving in ADS while leaning

Gameplay

• Reduced the hit damage for hands and feet and increased the hit damage on thighs and arms.
• The healing period for bandages has been reduced to 4.5 seconds from 8.5 seconds. The casting time and the amount of health restored are the same as before.
• Players can now parachute and land on certain areas that were not previously accessible, including the outskirts of the island
• Added markings for zeroing distances on 15x scope reticle texture
• Added new 4x reticle for 7.62mm weapons
• Added new 4x reticle for sniper and SMG weapons
• Added blur effect on the outside of scopes
• Bullets now penetrate water based on the velocity of projectile (the faster the velocity, more shallow the penetration)
• Lowered camera position when proning in third-person
• Decreased firing rate of SKS and Mini-14
• Increased sprinting speed while holding DMR in hands (now as fast as assualt rifles)
• Decreased recoil for Mk14
• 8x and 15x scopes cannot be attached to an M16A now

Item

Added 2 new weapons.

• – Added DP-28. DP-28 will be spawned in world. It has a 47-round pan magazine for 7.62mm. Sights and a 4x scope can be attached. It has low firing rate but a long effective firing range with high damage
  – Added AUG A3. The AUG A3 can be obtained from care packages. It’s a variant of a bull-pup assault rifle that uses a 5.56mm 30-round magazine as standard and 40 rounds when extended. It has high muzzle velocity, high rate of fire and low vertical recoil.
• Kar98k will no longer be included in care packages. World spawn rate of Kar98k will remain the same

UI/UX

Applied a new font for English

• Improved designs for in-game HUD, option window, inventory, menu screen, and system message box
• Improved Solo/Team Play UI
  – Moved health bars of team member(s) from the top left corner to the bottom left corner
  – Changed colors and markings in the mini map, world Map, and team list UI
  – Added indicators for team members to check their status (vehicle, parachuting, alive/dead, DBNO, connection status, etc.)
• Improved interaction HUD
  – If there is no more room left in the backpack, the font will turn red to show that items cannot be picked up
• Improved the mini map and the world map
  – Decreased the saturation of the mini map to further emphasize information of team members
  – Adjusted the colors of the world map to increase visibility of markers and other information
  – Players can check team members’ FOV direction through the world map and the mini map
  – When team members get on the same vehicle, a single indicator will appear
• Moved the kill log from the bottom left corner to the top right corner
• Modified the design of the health bar to show the point for 75%. The bar will not turn red when health is below 75%
• Added killcam feature that can be found in Settings. Now players can check killcams in the result screen
  – For Duo and Squad modes, killcam can be checked after all team members have died

Sound

• Changed the lobby music
• Improved vehicle engine sounds
• Added a sound that will be played around the edge of the blue zone
• Added three different sound effects for the red zone
  – Sounds of bombs being released
  – Sounds of bombs falling
  – Sounds of bombs exploding
• Added sounds when character jumps into water. Sound will be different based on the speed

Language

• Added four languages: Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Mexico) and Chinese (Traditional)

Bug fixes

• Fixed camera jittering for passenger sitting on the back of a motorcycle with sidecar
• Fixed the issue where animations are not played when bandages are used consecutively
• Removed the pink circle that appeared on certain buildings when parachuting
• Fixed the issue where shooting was possible when vaulting
• Greatly reduced blurriness of the reticle while in ADS mode

It’s easy to forget it, given how successful the game has been so fa, but PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is actually still in Early Access; its final, 1.0 release is almost here, and the test patch that has gone live ahead of the actual thing has now been datamined, revealing some information about what avid players can look forward to when the game is ‘officially’ released.

Among other things, it seems like the desert map, which was supposed to be one of the big updates, hasn’t actually made it into this version; that said, thanks to the data for the map being present, its layout appears to have been extracted (you can see a screenshot below, courtesy of an enterprising Reddit user).

A different Reddittor has determined the game will have a jet ski with the 1.0 patch, the VW minibus and a pickup truck have both been unearthed, too. So- the three new weapons that were promised? It looks like these are it.

PUBG is available on PC now in Early Access. It is due to get a final release on PC before the end of the year, and an Early Access launch on Xbox One next month.

One of the most notable releases coming to the Xbox One this Holiday season is PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds– since Microsoft has managed to secure exclusivity, at least temporarily, for the console release of the hit PC battle royale sensation that has broken every record in the book ever since it launched on Steam Early Access earlier this year.

We know the game is due to launch on the Xbox One by the end of this year, but we don’t know anything else- and with the end of the year rapidly approaching, there have been some who have wondered whether the console version might even be able to make that release date.

However, it seems like our questions will be answered soon- posting on Twitter, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg teased that the release date for PUBG on Xbox One may be announced during Paris Games Week, hinting at some ‘good news’ coming later this week. If so, let’s hope that it is launching within the next couple of weeks- that should help the Xbox One have a competitive advantage during the Holiday shopping season, too.

https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/924953757263081473

Though Bluehole’s PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has made some significant milestones in the past several months, it probably hit its biggest high yet. Korean tracking site Gametrics (via Inven) has revealed that the Battle Royale title has surpassed League of Legends and Overwatch in terms of player numbers in PC Bangs.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds share of players is 24.28 percent while League of Legends is at 23.62 percent and Overwatch is at 13.73 percent. PC Bangs are essentially like cyber cafes but dedicated to video games with League of Legends and Overwatch being some of the most popular titles.

League of Legends is in fact one of the most played games in Korea with PC Bangs contributing greatly to that number. It’s not strange to see competitive titles, especially those with lots of hype, overtaking League of Legends. Time will tell if interest can be sustained long enough to make PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds a real threat to the MOBA. Still, this is a pretty big development for Bluehole and Brendan Greene.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is one of the biggest games of the year- so naturally, its final release (given that it technically actually still is in Early Access) release is a big deal; and its impending Xbox One release is a big deal as well, as it gives Microsoft an ace in the hole for the console wars.

In a new post on the game’s Steam page, developer Bluehole shared their road to the game’s upcoming launches; as of right now, the full focus is on hitting the game’s 1.0 (i.e. ‘final’) launch on the PC. The team is also working on the Xbox One release, which will be via the Xbox Preview (i.e. Xbox’s version of Early Access) program.

“For PC, we will be only focusing on doing our best to stabilize the launch build and we don’t have any plans to deploy patches to live servers except for this week”, Bluehole said. “However, there will be features like vaulting and climbing which will have a huge impact on the game and need to be tested for at least a month. We will be running test servers at least three times in preparation for that.”

As of right now, no release date for either version of the game has been shared or even hinted at; previously, Bluehole has heavily implied that it would like to see both out before the end of this year, so I imagine we will see that happen, at least for one of them. PUBG is currently available on PC via Steam Early Access.

One of the biggest, and most silent, victories Microsoft secured for itself last generation was when it managed to get Minecraft on the Xbox 360- then as a timed exclusive. This long predated them buying out Mojang and the property, you see, and at the time, Minecraft was not the behemoth that it is today.

Few paid attention to it, but Minecraft would end up being a major win for Microsoft and the Xbox 360, helping the console expand to newer market demographics in the process. I have long contended that Microsoft’s securing of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the hit battle royale game that hit Steam Early Access earlier this year, as a limited Xbox exclusive (for the time being, who knows how things play out in the future), might end up having the same effect- and it looks like no less than Xbox boss Phil Spencer himself expects similar results.

Responding to a fan on Twitter, Spencer said that expects the results of bringing PUBG to Xbox One to be similar to bringing Minecraft to Xbox 360. He added that while he does acknowledge that the games are different, he feels like the game will be huge on the console regardless, also saying that he is extremely happy for Bluehole, and the success they have managed to achieve for themselves.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is out now on PC via Steam Early Access, and is due to get a launch on Xbox One via Game Preview before the end of this year.

Similar to bringing Minecraft to console. Different game obviously but I expect PUBG to be very big on Xbox for many years.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) September 19, 2017

And having gotten to know the team at Blue Hole more, I'm incredibly happy for them.  Great to see them having this success

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) September 19, 2017