Today's 2018 roadmap for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is hopefully everything players have been hoping to hear for some time. Certain topics commonly discussed by the community may have been absent from the roadmap, like balance and crates, but those were likely beyond the scope of the roadmap. Also at issue is the lack of a more specific release schedule, perhaps betraying PUBG Corp.'s lack of dedication to these pl

The latest and greatest gaming feud, Bluehole Studios' PUBG collectibles and Epic Games' Fortnite , is taking on a new level of competition. The PUBG development team laid out their plans for 2018 and it looks like they are trying to copy some of the more successful elements of what Fortnite brings to the increasingly-competitive battle roy

Of course, not everything on the roadmap is targeting the Fortnite audiences and much of the upcoming plans are simple tweaks and polishing of what PUBG does best. Improving on the graphics, the art team is reportedly working on all around improvements to make the game more aesthetically pleasing. For instance, check out the new art direction on buildi

Of course, this isn't the only change coming out of Fortnite 's playbooks. Another addition coming to the list of changes is an Emote System -- a feature that will be coming to the Test Server "very soon." For an idea of what this looks like, check out the gallery be

If it wasn't for Fortnite coming in and stealing the spotlight from PUBG , we'd be stuck with a poorly optimized, gambling-focused battle royale game. Thankfully, Fortnite is here, forcing PUBG Corp and publisher/original developer Bluehole to take some action (and ideas). Over the last two months PUBG has added weekly events which players have fallen in love with, so much so there's a lot of demand to see some of these test modes become permanent. These events include shotgun-only modes to large team deathmatches and there's more on the

And that issue is only going to become more prevalent later this year as we expect multiple Battle Royale games to start being announced and releasing in various forms. We already know that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Battlefield V should have their own takes on Battle Royale, and that Ubisoft's Massive is likely developing one too. Every triple-A publisher must be, and when the big gaming companies come in with better looking, more feature-full, and better optimized battle royale titles - many of them attached to established franchises - PUBG is in trouble. Especially if they keep milking players for loot box money when these other new games may not have that. And that's good thing. PUBG isn't free-to-play like its current competition, so its microtransaction practices are slimey at b

Finally, PUBG Corp. dedicated itself to a routine schedule for major patches in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds . From here on, major patches are planned to be released on a 2-month schedule, with the first such patch planned for March. Smaller patches and hotfixes will continue to be released as needed, especially as the Experimental Test Server grows in

The map selector is about to become more essential than ever since PUBG's third map, Codename: Savage , has already become playable on the new test client on Steam. We tried it out when it first released and while we enjoy the idea of a faster-paced option on a map that's one-quarter the sized of the other two, the mid-game is still slow and the map looked incredibly ugly and unfinished. PUBG Corp rushed it out to get early feedback and to have something to show for themselves other than weapon skin loot bo

"We just implemented ping-based matchmaking which really has improved the gameplay experience for a lot of players. It's working out quite well and we're still doing research. We have the data team looking into it and trying to improve it. And that's the goal with the game, to keep improving it over this year and the next year and the next ten yea

The developer goes on to note that in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds , players must "visually detect" other players because of the lack of player indicators seen in other shooter games. PUBG Corp. is using this particular section of the lawsuit to assert that games like Rules of Survival have also ripped off the style of cosmetics offered by PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds . These cosmetic similarities, the developer appears to suggest, should be taken seriously because they actively impact the core, PUBG gameplay experience. It also argues that the visual design of these cosmetics is a "protectable" w

Considering the fact that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Steam sales have made it the third-highest grossing game on Valve's digital distribution platform, it's safe to say that the battle royale title is a bona fide success. Of course, many would still argue that the game suffers from a litany of issues, with one ever-present complaint from lots of fans being about how Chinese cheaters are making PUBG matches unfair. This has led to plenty of calls for PUBG Corp. to "region lock China," but its creator Brendan Greene disagrees that it's a viable solution to the prob