Examining the March Update and Roadmap

On the 8th of March, we finally got some news on where PUBG Corp. will take their game. After the release of the Roadmap, the community's confidence in the game definitely has come back and if they'll keep updating us monthly with new content and stay transparent - they can hold that level of confidence. We'll examine the patch notes of the March Update and the Roadmap providing our input and thoughts about where PUBG's headed.

March Update

In the March Update, we got some extra optimizations that'll reduce input lag, optimize vehicle physics, and the beginning/end of effects. Rubberbanding was a major issue a few months back and still persists - though it's a lot better currently than it used to be. Vehicle physics could get quite wonky on higher velocities when you would drive over some steep terrain and, personally, I have experienced FPS drops when a red zone starts and that has been fixed in this update due to the beginning/end of effects fix.

On all platforms, PUBG now has an in-game friends list, allowing you to add the friends that you only play PUBG with to a friends list that isn't bound to Steam. For PC players, it's not useful at all unless your friends list on Steam is full already.

Main menu voice chat has been added so you can always talk to your squadmates, but it's still an inferior way of using voice communication compared to actual voice communication services like Discord or Teamspeak.

The flare gun has also been added to the game but only on custom servers. This red revolver fits in your pistol slot and only has one bullet. It will call an airdrop to the general location you shot it at with a green airdrop crate that emits yellow smoke instead of the standard red smoke. Shoot it straight up into the air for the airdrop to be called at that location. It will not have any effect if you shoot it horizontally or at another player.

There are now more holes in the floors of high buildings on Miramar, at least. Miramar has suffered from inescapable buildings since most have had one entrance/exit and no other option when getting camped downstairs other than jumping out of a window and losing 50 to 75 percent of your health.

Something which was added very recently is the rotating event mode. Like Fortnite, this mode will change every (unannounced) period of time to keep the game fresh and fun playing it with other rules. The first mode we're getting is the 8-man squad mode which allows us to test out larger-scaled battles in PUBG. It's fun but don't take it too seriously as everyone will die at the looting spot they parachuted on and stats won't be recorded thus being unranked.

Last, but certainly not least, are the changes to scopes. Before this update, the scopes felt like some sort of tunnel vision since they've been adjusted in such a way you can't look outside of the scope anymore due to an annoying blur. The vision that the scope has when you're ADSing is much larger now and they lag less when you're scoping in and out quickly on lesser rigs.

PUBG Roadmap

We've covered the roadmap with our very own DIG Ziphon, but we left out some changes and only displayed his opinion in that article. If you want to read his opinions on the main subjects of the roadmap, go here.

We'll be covering one topic that was mentioned in the article with Ziphon, but mostly focus on what's been left out.

The Jungle Map

The 4x4km map is so exciting we wanted to cover it again in this article. The map seems to be based on East Asian countries by the looks of some kind of rice-field terrain located in the eastern part of the map.

There are no bridges on this map connecting the different smaller islands to the main island to the east, forcing you to get a boat/jet ski or swim over to the other side. This will encourage players to camp the main island when the play zone forces people to move from one side to another. PUBG Corp. has said that the blue zones will work differently on this map due to the smaller size of the island, so we'll have to see which playstyle (Aggressive and central or passive and playing edges) will come out on top.

The smaller size of this map will spice up the gameplay due to faster-paced games and more action in the early game than on Erangel and Miramar. A tip to probably keep in mind is that you should find a boat/jet ski early on in the game to not risk anything later.

The last things we would like to touch on are the very strange large grey buildings on the northwestern and southeastern edges of the map. They don't look like normal cities but rather an area with different altitudes that goes up pretty high. Maybe there's some good high ground to make use of?

A 6-second teaser was released by PlayerUnknown (Creative Director of PUBG and previously H1Z1 King of the Kill) on Twitter.

Emote System and Animation Replacements

Now, this is kind of a weird topic since emotes are quite wacky and don't add anything interesting to the game. There are currently eight emotes in the game that feel like they've been made for third-person and they're really buggy when using them in first-person. They do show us what we can expect for new animations though.

Speaking about new animations, they also announced that new animations will be coming for both third-person and first-person to replace the current "animations". Right now, you can just hop around seats in your car by teleporting to the other seat or even jump in and out of it without any cooldown, but that may change when they add animations that take time before they're completed. This change may not seem like much but can actually balance the game out nicely just like vaulting and climbing did because you could instantly jump through windows by abusing the crouch jump.

Sound Changes

Sound effects in PUBG are quite linear at the moment, even after the repetitive vehicle sounds got overhauled and now actually use real vehicle sounds for changing gear and braking.

They're looking to improve upon the current sounds by adding sound for equipment that you wear, different breathing sounds, and aeroplane sounds. Currently, it doesn't matter if you have an unrealistic amount of loot in your backpack or on your body since your weight won't actually increase. Clattering of grenades and weapons on your back is what PUBG Corp. is looking to add to, for example, gain information about an enemy player walking outside when you're camping inside a compound.

Breathing sounds may not add much realism or impact the game. The only ways I can see it actually being a good addition to the game is if one of two things get added. The first thing that could be good is increased breathing from exhaustion. For example, if an enemy runs hundreds of meters towards you and eventually there's only a small wall between the two of you, you should be able to hear the enemy player breath.

The pictogram depicting lungs will be displayed when holding your breath, if it runs out and turns red you won't be able to continue holding your breath.

The 2nd method of adding new breathing sound effects that may influence your decisions in-game is actually holding your breath when you ADS and hold left-shift at the same time. I don't know why they haven't added this feature in the first place as the keybind literally reads "hold breath" but still hasn't been implemented almost a year later. These are just some ideas of how sound could add realism to the game.

Aeroplane sounds have been the same since release and if it isn't going directly crossing over your location, you're almost forced to look for the plane to know where it's going. Not anymore though, because the "Doppler effect" has been added to the aeroplane's in-game sounds. This means that the pitch of the aeroplane's noise will now be higher/lower depending on the distance you're away from the aeroplane and the direction that the aeroplane is going.

Conclusion

As mentioned in the patch notes, the list of new features and replacement of old features isn't exhaustive. We could expect some other news to be announced but don't expect anything else than the Jungle Map and some minor changes in the next two months. The future is looking bright for PUBG and if they can keep their word the game will thrive once again.

 

Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop