PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is out of early access today with the release of the 1.0 update, and it brings with it a slew of improvements to the already very successful game. Naturally, we spent some time playing with the updated game, and we have to say: it’s an amazing change.
For one, there is very, very noticeable improvement in performance; this is especially noticeable on older machines. Textures render much quicker, frame rate is more consistent now, and Battlegrounds 1.0 just feels very responsive in general; even picking up items feels faster. If you can’t run the game well previously, it may be worth another shot.
The user interface (both in-game and the menu) has been overhauled as well, and it makes more sense. There are nice little touches here and there in the menu – like how the player model will actually “step up” when you click ready – and it is actually pleasant to look at now.
In-game, the health bar now explicitly shows how much you can heal with bandages and first aid kits, which makes it easier to gauge how many bandages you need to heal up before using boost items. Your teammates are numbered now too, and the kill feed has been moved to the top right side, leaving space for the health bar of team members at the bottom left.
And then we have the highly anticipated vaulting mechanic, and it is wonderful. More advanced players used to “crouch jump” to jump out of windows in the past, but with Battlegrounds 1.0, even new players can do the same by simply using the spacebar to vault out. However, it seems to be somewhat inconsistent still: some windows may look like it can be vaulted over, but it’s actually not possible.
There are lot of other changes the 1.0 update brings to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and if the game can succeed at its buggy, pre-release state, we imagine it will be even more successful now that it is finally out of early access. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds can now be purchased on the Steam store for RM74.99: the price remains unchanged, of course.
