Well, as rumours have suggested in recent months, that’s changing soon. At yesterday’s The Game Awards, Krafton announced that PUBG (which, ridiculously enough, is now officially known as PUBG Battlegrounds) is going to transition to being a free-to-play title on all the platforms that it’s available on starting January 12.

Those who bought the game will stall have access to the exclusive founder’s editions cosmetics but there’s no word on if PUBG will adopt a battle pass model to go along with its switch to being free-to-play.

Meanwhile, PUBG: New State launched a month ago on iOS and Android as well, while reports have also suggested that another new game in the series – possibly PUBG 2.0 – will be releasing sometime next year.

According to the leaker, a new free-to-play test will go live next month – following which PUBG Corp. will track responses and act accordingly. The leaker also revealed that the developer had plans of going the free-to-play route earlier in 2019 with a similar test, but didn’t get the responses it required.

Going the free-to-play route makes total sense, since most of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds‘ competitors – Fortnite, Apex Legends, Warzone and countless others are all free to play. However, interest for the game seems to be waning out now – so it’d be interesting to see if it actually goes free to play or remains a paid affair. That’s of course, considering the leak is indeed true.

https://twitter.com/PlayerIGN/status/1418897430859460613

The PUBG universe is clearly on the brink of expanding into a much larger one in the coming years, and it seems the first steps for that are going to be taken very soon. While the battle royale title that kicked the whole thing off is still going strong, more games set in the universe are set to arrive soon.

As per a report by Bloomberg, Krafton – the holding company for PUBG Corp – has confirmed that a couple of new games are set to arrive soon. A new battle royale title for mobile devices is set to launch later this year, and will be based on PUBG. Additionally, another new game set in the same universe will also be launching for PC and consoels by next year.

The latter in particular is interesting. A recent report indicated that PUBG 2.0 is in development (as is PUBG Mobile 2.0), and if that is indeed an accurate leak, it might very well be the game being talked about here.

Meanwhile, the survival horror science fiction game The Callisto Protocol (bein developed by a team composed of various Dead Space developers, including creator Glen Schofield) is also set 300 years after PUBG, and is set to arrive next year.

Last year we got the frightful reveal of The Callisto Protocol, an upcoming next gen horror title from some of the same minds that brought up the beloved Dead Space franchise. While all we have at the moment is a CGI trailer and a few details, maybe one of the odder aspects of the game is that it is canonically connected to the battle royale title, PUBG. Today we got a little more detail about what that will entail.

Speaking with GamesRadar, Striking Distance’s Glen Schofield explained what was going on with this oddball connection. Said to be set 300 years in the future of PUBG, Schofield said they were working with PUBG Corps with their team of writers to flesh out the lore of the world of PUBG and The Callisto Project will be part of that. He says there is a timeline to it all, but also said the connection itself won’t be a deep one, and will instead lead more into nods and references for fans, and even hints PUBG itself may be dropping some references to Callisto at some point as well.

“We’re helping PUBG Corp right now as a team of writers, working on the lore for PUBG and its universe,” he said. “They have a timeline, and we fit on that timeline now. It’s not going to be really deep, but there will be little connections here and there. We’ll probably be referencing one another from time to time… It will make more sense once the game comes out!”

The Callisto Protocol is set to release in 2022 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

While Fortnite has become a pop cultural cornerstone, it wasn’t really the start of the battle royale genre as we know it. While it’s fair to say it popularized it, PUBG is really the first game that hit the mainstream to utilize the concept. While it didn’t get the cultural cache of Epic’s shooter, it did pretty well for itself. It’s even getting a spin-off, sort of, 300 years in its world’s future. Now, though, it seems a sequel of some kind is potentially in the works.

As originally reported by Korean news site MTN, and translated and transcribed by PlayerIGN on Twitter, which you can see below, the publisher is working on some type of follow up to the title. It is said to be for PC, consoles and mobile. There isn’t a lot of information outside that at this point.

It’s unclear what a sequel would look like, if it were to try something different or just be an upgraded and refined version of the game we know, a 2.0 update and refresh as opposed to a full PUBG 2. As of now the current game is available on most major consoles, PC and compatible iOS and Android devices. We’ll keep you updated for when more news comes.

https://twitter.com/PlayerIGN/status/1346753833691611136?s=20

At this year’s Game Awards, we got our first look at The Callisto Protocol, a new sci-fi horror game that looks to potentially scratch that Dead Space itch. It won’t be out for another 2 years, however, so it’ll be a long wait, but in the meantime there is a bit of interesting information about the game and its relation to another series, the original battle royale shooter PUBG.

Glen Schofield spoke with IGN about the game, and revealed that the title actually takes place in the PUBG universe, very far off in the future. If you weren’t aware, the developer Striking Distance was built under PUBG Corps, the owner and publisher of the battle royale franchise, and the idea for Callisto Protocol was born out of that.

“The funny thing is, I came in with this story when I went and met with the PUBG people for the first time and started talking about [The Callisto Protocol] and building a studio. I presented this game to them, and so what we did was we made it fit within the PUBG storyline.”

It’s a bit of strange trivia, but probably one that won’t matter a whole lot outside a few references and easter eggs. Schofield said he hopes the game will be the scariest one of the new generation, whether it’s connected to PUBG or not. We’ll see for ourselves when The Callisto Protocol releases for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2022.

Though massively popular battle royale shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds isn’t getting a dedicated next-gen release yet, the game will be playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S when the two consoles become available thanks to backward compatibility. In a recent update, the game’s developers confirmed what enhancements players can expect to see on next-gen hardware as a result.

On both PS5 and Xbox Series X, PUBG will run at 60 FPS with the Framerate Priority option selected. These versions are based on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X builds of the game respectively, which are getting the Framerate Priority option added in the October update.

Meanwhile, on the Xbox Series S, PUBG will continue to run at 30 FPS, based on the base Xbox One build of the game. The developers say that an option to raise the framerate cap on the base Xbox One and the Xbox Series S will be added later on, but no specific window is provided for that.

The developers also say that on next-gen consoles, PUBG’s perforance is “extremely smooth and stable” and has “little to no frame drops”, while also benefitting from faster loading.

PUBG is currently available on PC, Xbox One, PC, iOS, Android, and Stadia. It will be available via backward compatibility for Xbox Series X/S on November 10, and for PS5 on November 12.

2020 is ticking away, slowly but surely. It can be harsh at times to look at the calendar and see the months fading away. But at the very least it means that for all the subscription services you are part of there is always a fresh rollover happening. One of those, of course, is Sony’s PlayStation Plus and September has two games in two very different multiplayer genres for you to enjoy.

As announced via the official PlayStation blog, next month will see Capcom’s long running Street Fighter 5 being given away. The title has been ongoing since 2016. This will be the base game, though all of the additional modes have been given as free updates. The other is the original battle royale shooter PUBG. The game more or less invented an entire genre that is still going on today, and if you haven’t checked it out now is as good a time as any.

Street Fighter 5 and PUBG will be free for PS Plus subscribers on PS4 starting September 1st until October 5th. The current games are Fall Guys and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered, which you will be able to redeem until the end of this month.

At least once every generation, there is one game that introduces a defining feature that will effectively influence the way the industry going forward. There were a few games this generation to do that, but probably one of the first was PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds). The game was the first fully fleshed out battle royale shooter we saw, a new system that’s been adapted by so many other developers at this point, it’s staggering. And well, one of the first and now the best selling.

As reported by GamesIndustry, the game has now surpassed 70 millions units sold. This will also make it the best selling game that launched this generation (while sales-wise it’s been surpassed this gen by Grand Theft Auto 5, that game launched last gen). It is worth nothing here that the game is available on Xbox Game Pass and was a giveaway for those who signed up for Google Stadia Pro. It’s unclear if those numbers are in any way factored in here, but even if they are, we’re still looking at incredible numbers.

The game originally launched on PC, and then slowly made its way to consoles with the Xbox One and then PS4, until eventually getting mobile counterparts. It’s most recently been available on Google Stadia, and remains available via all of those platforms now.

The original battle royale shooter, PUBG, has enjoyed a long life span, as well as continued updates. The focus has always been on that original battle royale, though. And while undoubtedly that will continue to be the game’s main draw, it does seem like the developer is looking to try some new things, starting with an old classic mode.

Earlier, the PUBG test client got an update (6.2) that adds Arcade. The new section will actually cycle out a variety of new modes for you to play and try out. As of now, they haven’t announced what all of these modes will be, but the first one out is as old school as old school gets: Team Deathmatch. However, it does have a twist. You will have a boost gauge, a bar that fills up by getting kills and assists, and goes down whenever you take damage. The boost gauge is required to be filled to regenerate health, meaning you have to stay active to some degree when playing the game.

PUBG‘s Team Deathmatch mode is live on PC in test servers now and will go live for everyone next week. It will eventually come to consoles at some point after that.