PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Ditches Patch Schedule Over Quality Concerns

When Epic Games announced that its fort-building survival title Fortnite was getting an all-new Battle Royale mode, comparisons to Bluehole's PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) were immediately made. And in the same quick fashion, tensions also flared. Bluehole vice president Chang Han Kim commented that the developer was worried that Fornite might be replicating PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds gameplay , criticizing the way Epic Games had marketed the new Fornite m


All the nominees were selected by members of the Academy’s peer panels, with one panel for each award category. Each panel is composed of "industry experts" (mostly game developers or representatives of publishers), and the winners will be determined via a confidential voting proc


It seems that the comparisons have not gone unnoticed by the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ' ( PUBG ) team either, as today, developer Bluehole sent out a press release criticizing Epic Games over its Fortnite update. Bluehole vice president Chang Han Kim says, "After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known." Kim also reveals that Bluehole has had "an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG ’s development as they are the creators of [Unreal Engine 4], the engine we licensed for the ga


The Battlegrounds team is "concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG Updates is known for," with Kim warning that the Bluehole team is "contemplating further action." At this point, it's unclear exactly what that this "further action" might look like, but if Bluehole does decide to file a lawsuit, then it could put the future of Fortnite 's soon-to-be free to play game mode at r


"Until the official release of the game, we will not have our scheduled weekly or monthly patches rolling out as often as before. We’ve found internally that being rushed to finish certain features, and having shorter QA test time between pushing updates caused more issues than it solved in regards to maintaining a high standard of quality. We want to put our best content out, and ensure that everything we do is making the game more enjoyable with every upda


As it so happens, this isn't the first instance of players getting some kind of comeuppance after cheating in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds , as Tencent–that is, the company responsible for the game’s Chinese localization and the mobile port–recently helped police arrest 120 cheat makers in China . Interestingly enough, some Chinese cheaters caught in the crackdown had already done jail time in the past, which makes one wonder if PUBG Corp's huge ban of 100,000 players will actually assist in deterring further exploitation in the fut


68 different games received a nomination, with Guerrilla Games' Horizon Zero Dawn leading the pack with ten nods. The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild follows with six nominations. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice , Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and Cuphead got five nods. Gorogoa, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds , Super Mario Odyssey received four nominati


Moreover, the Bluehole executive takes issue with Epic Games' promotion of the Fortnite Battle Royale mode. In the announcement post for the Fortnite update, Epic specifically states that it "loves" battle royale games like PUBG . In the game mode's announcement trailer, Epic's creative director Ronald Mustard references both PUBG and H1Z1 (which has a standalone battle royale mode called King of the Kill ) as areas of inspirat


"Before we actually looked deeper into how similar [ Fortnite 's Battle Royale ] is, we wanted to raise an issue because this is from Epic Games. We could be the biggest indie success story that they have and there will be other indie developers that aspire to succeed like us using Unreal Engine, and they would be concerned, right? So we just wanted to raise an issue and let people know that it can be a probl


Epic Games has yet to respond to Bluehole's harshly worded statement, but fans of both games are already weighing in. Some argue that Epic should have seen this coming, as the developer directly names Battlegrounds as an inspiration, and that Bluehole was always going to take issue with it. But others say that Bluehole is in the wrong, arguing that the concept of battle royale modes are nothing new. Grand Theft Auto Online has a battle royale mode for example, while PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, actually consulted on H1Z1 's battle royale mode before Battlegrounds was relea


Finally, the patch for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds also adds analog stick acceleration when jumping out of the plane and while parachuting. For many, the experience had previously felt painful to experience due to issues with the Xbox One version's performance , and the fact that using the sticks didn't offer any way to speed up and get to the ground faster than the competition. For a complete list of the patch's contents, check out the rundown toward the end of the arti