PUBG turned six in 2023, and while the battle royale genre has become wildly popular since Krafton first launched the game in 2017 – partly thanks to PUBG’s success – the original is still going strong with a dedicated, and growing, audience GLHF spoke with PUBG director Taeseok Jang via email about navigating the competition and maintaining an engaged audience when so many other distractions and options compete for attention.
The premise of most battle royales might be the same – eliminate other players until you or your team is the last one standing – but Jang says a few key factors set PUBG apart and make it more appealing to fans.
“PUBG is not complicated; its rules are as simple as Rock, Paper, Scissors,” Jang says. “No lengthy explanation is needed—once you try it, you understand. I believe that’s the reason behind PUBG’s widespread popularity and appeal. When you play the game, you can experience a strong adrenaline rush… and you might not be able to stop thinking about it even as you try to sleep at night. This rare experience, even in sports, is backed by simple, clear rules.”
Fortnite and other popular multiplayer games such as Overwatch 2 and Halo Infinite feature a broad range of weapons, though they often don’t feel true to life. When your game includes bouncy hammers, laser beams, and shotguns made from literal garbage, though, that’s not exactly surprising. PUBG takes a more grounded approach to gunplay, and Jang believes it offers something unique and appealing to fans.
“Players can enjoy long-range shooting in a vast open world, and controlling the recoil during gunplay is a unique and fun experience,” Jang says. “PUBG offers genuine enjoyment like this and encourages players to keep trying to improve their skills.”
Despite the gunplay’s “deep mechanics,” though, Jang says actual shooting accounts for a fraction of the time players spend in a match session. What keeps them invested in PUBG is the world itself and the stories they tell in it, whether it’s with each other through the game’s social features – about to become even stronger with the new clan addition that encourages group play – or just by experimenting with different approaches in its complex, open battlefields.
PUBG also takes a different approach to expanding its audience. Fortnite appeals to new audience segments with collaboration events that see the likes of Master Chief and Geralt of Rivia join the game. Jang says PUBG’s core audience hasn’t changed much since 2017, but some key changes over the years have resulted in more players around the world picking up the game and staying with it.
Jang said PUBG transitioning to a free-to-play model saw a substantial increase in users, especially in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Other events and additions might not have had the same international impact, but they did help make PUBG more appealing to regional audiences.
The Deston map that launched in 2022, for example, was a hit with North American players, who dropped onto the battlefield in significantly greater numbers than usual after that. Future updates will follow a similar pattern designed to make PUBG fun and appealing for everyone and not just specific segments immersed in a certain part of pop culture.
As for PUBG’s future in a broader sense, Jang prefers to take it one year at a time, always conscious of the possibility that PUBG may, like so many other live service games in 2023, fall out of fashion. He didn’t elaborate on specific events or ideas, but his goal for the next year is continuing to improve PUBG’s stability and the team’s communication with fans.
“While our game is more stable now than in the past, it’s still a bit nerve-wracking to check the service status daily,” Jang says. “We’ll likely still be seeking ways to provide better service, communicate more effectively with users, create more engaging content, and improve anti-cheat solutions.”
“I hope that many users will continue to love PUBG just as they do now and that they’ll recognize it as the best in playability with no true rival. We’ll do everything in our power to lay the groundwork for this continued success.”
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
