In 2000, a Japanese film by the name Battle Royale was released. Soon after its release, the film became a fan favourite amongst film lovers globally thus becoming one of the best films to be ever produced. Recognizing the popularity of the film, some innovative game developers decided to imitate the key elements from the film into designing video games. The objective being to allow Battle Royale fans the opportunity to immerse themselves into the Battle Royal environment. One such game developed with this objective in mind is Player Unknown’s Battleground or simply PUGB.
PUGB is a battle royal video game that allows players the opportunity to compete against fellow players for the chance to claim some bragging rights. The whole essence of the game is more like a large scale last man standing death match as up to one hundred players parachute from a plane onto the battleground where they face off till the last man standing remains. As soon as the players land on the ground, they hurriedly look to amass as many weapons as possible while avoiding attacks. Once a player has gathered the ammunition he needs, the next step will be to claim as many lives as possible while he himself avoids death.
The beauty of PUGB is that once the game starts, after every minute, the playable area on the map shrinks in size towards a single random location. All players who fail to enter the safe zone in time will be eliminated. Due to the shrinking in size of the playable area, player face offs become frequent thereby adding to the overall excitement of the game.
At the end of each round, depending on the player’s performance, players stand to receive in-game currency which they can use to purchase crates containing cosmetic items for character or weapon customization.
PUGB as an eSport
An important thing to note about PUGB is that the game developer that is, PUGB Corporation decided to organize some PUGB game competitions/tournaments. As such, when playing PUGB, players do not only look towards claiming bragging rights but also stand to win some massive monetary rewards! For 2021, the running PUGB tournaments are as follows:
PUGB Major Tournaments for 2021
- PUGB Global Invitational 2021: February 5 to March 29 – Prize Pool ($3 500 000) – Venue – Online
- PUGB Weekly Series East Asian Phase 1: May 15 to May 16 – Prize Pool (-) – Venue – TBA
- PUGB Weekly Series Americas Phase 1 :April 7 to TBA – Prize Pool (-) Venue – TBA
- ESL PUGB Masters: TBA
- PUGB Global Championship 2021: TBA (Invitational tournament)