I’ve never been a fan of survival video games until I started playing PlayerUnknown’s Battle Grounds . PUBG is a game with one simple premise: survive on an island long enough until you’re the last man standing. It’s currently one of the most popular games on Steam, even beating DOTA II as having the most concurrent players. The game started out as an indie project made by one guy, eventually snowballing into a phenomenon that’s even being ported to the Xbox One X.
Getting thrown into an abandoned wasteland with nothing but your wit and the materials you can collect never really sounded like a good time. My friends had a Minecraft server modded to their exact specifications and even with that much control, I still despised the whole experience. I like my games to have a linear story, one that I can follow without needing to use my imagination to fill in the blanks. Games like ARK and H1Z1 were never on my radar, I was too busy playing League Of Legends to notice they existed. After watching streamers like H3h3, DrDisRespect and PewDiePie engross themselves in the game, I decided I had to stop being a party pooper and finally jump on that PUBG hype train.
I jumped on the Steam store, paid my $29.99 and downloaded PUBG as soon as possible. After customizing my character with a jaw line the Crimson Chin would be proud of, I jumped straight into a match. I still can't believe how instantaneous the matchmaking is – I’ve rarely had to wait for a game to start for more than a few minutes before a lobby is full. The fact that PUBG can fill up 90 spots in a matter of minutes for thousands of times of a day should really be a testament to how successful it is. Waiting 10 minutes for an Overwatch match is starting to look way less appealing.
Dropping out of the plane for the first time is a rush of an experience. You don’t know any of the locations on the map and you’re sort of just praying that you land in a spot with some ammo and resources. On my first jump, I popped my parachute immediately when the prompt appeared for fear of breaking my virtual neck, causing me to take forever to hit the ground. After role playing as a slow-moving leaf, I made it onto the ground and was ready to play. I dived into an abandoned house, grabbed a pistol, some ammo and a bullet-proof vest out of the closet. I was ready to go hunting, prowling the fields for an enemy worthy of my talents. And then I died. Shot in the back of my head. I couldn’t believe that after all that build-up, all I could do was watch my lifeless body twitch on the virtual ground. Since then I’ve played around half-dozen games, breaking the top 30 once.
I know it’s taken me forever, but PUBG is an incredibly fun game. Even though I’m not a survivalist who knows the names of different guns or what the practical uses for moose urine in the apocalypse are, I still have so much fun in this virtual coliseum. MOBAs and card games can get boring after awhile, but PUBG is always throwing something new at you. If you were like me and refused to give this game a chance, I implore you to try. Survival games get so much better when crafting, house building and role play just aren’t integral to the enjoyment of the game.
