PUBG: 9 Features It Needs To Compete With Fortnite

It's not too late to catch up.

PUBG Fortnite
Bluehole/Epic

Epic Games must think all its Christmases have come at once.

Since the launch of its battle royale mode in the latter half of 2017, Fortnite's popularity hasn't just blossomed, but exploded with a supersonic bang, racking up player counts in their millions. For many, this is their first foray into the addictive nature of all vs all, winner-takes-all gameplay. Players downloaded on a whim, staying for the replayability and near-daily support provided by Epic.

For others, it's a second love. One that stole their attention away from the first with the promise of a brighter future. Bluehole's PUBG is, of course, the first love in this metaphor, and now that it's faced with some stiff competition, the OG video game battle royale experience is struggling to keep up.

As with all popular genres, there's room in the world for more than one example to exist, but that's only possible if there's reason to play one over the other. Brendan Greene's creation certainly has its advantages over Epic's sleeper hit, but the competition has made many realise that it's still a fair few eggs short of being a full basket.

9. Better Anti-Cheat Software

When a game reaches peak popularity as PUBG has in less than 12 months, you can bet your bottom dollar that all of that attention will attract the sorts of bottom feeders that enjoy nothing more than sucking the fun out of it. Cheating will inevitably exist in an online environment - it's how well the people in charge crack down on such unsavoury activity that's important.

Credit where it's due, developers Bluehole has acknowledged the problem and is actively attempting to stamp out the prevalence of aim-bots, wall-hacks and speed-revives, but it has clearly been unprepared for the massive influx of cheaters since launch.

Fortnite, of course, has a similar problem on its hands, but with how Bluehole decided to handle cosmetic items (more on that to come), PUBG has the added headache of bots being used to farm Battle Points.

The issues have reached such a point that the developer has been forced to delay development to redouble its efforts on eradicating cheaters, not the sort of news one would expect to hear for a full-priced game with millions of active players.

Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.