Backpacks, body armor, and helmets are all tiered from Level 1 to Level 3, but each gun is created identically to the other guns of its type. You start out with no items at all, but everyone has the same two primary weapon slots, sidearm slot, throwable slot, and storage/armor slots. Instead, each piece of gear you find is placed semi-logically in buildings around the post-apocalyptic landscapes. Since PUBG has a much more realistic tone, there’s no magically building walls out of thin air, grappling hooks, rocket launchers, or Thanos crossovers to be found here. But given the size of the three maps and slow pacing, you may have games that stretch for over 20 minutes without ever seeing a single person and then get shot in the head by a mountaintop sniper – those runs are super frustrating. Hunkering down behind cover while under fire by an enemy squad, calling out directions on the compass to teammates to try to organize a flank, or hysterically laughing when things go terribly wrong underscores what makes the battle royale genre so fun. That makes the highs that much more exhilarating but also the lows can be painfully boring.

“Compared to other battle royale shooters – and specifically Fortnite – PUBG is a methodical and tactical experience, one that’s as much about avoiding combat until you’re sure you have the upper hand as it is about actually scoring kills.

Player unknown battlegrounds xbox one