41 Fun Facts About PUBG: Battlegrounds

Up to how many players parachute onto the island at the start of a standard PUBG match?

100. Everyone lands unarmed, so the opening minutes are a scramble for weapons scattered at random across the map.

What phrase is shown to the last player or team standing at the end of a PUBG match?

Winner winner chicken dinner. In China, the line led players to nickname PUBG and its clones 'chicken-eating games'.

What online handle does PUBG creator Brendan Greene go by?

PlayerUnknown. Greene backed mod support for PUBG, saying he wanted to 'find the next PlayerUnknown' among its players.

Greene's earliest mod efforts drew on which book series before he moved away to avoid copyright issues?

The Hunger Games. Greene was also inspired by a DayZ streamer tournament he couldn't join, so he set out to build a mode anyone could play.

What was PUBG's first map, an island dotted with Soviet-style brutalist buildings?

Erangel. Greene chose an island because island maps had worked best in his mods.

Which kitchen item doubles as a melee weapon and a piece of armour in PUBG?

Frying pan. PUBG Corp's 2018 lawsuit against NetEase listed cookware used as a weapon or armour among the features rivals had copied.

Greene's earliest battle royale mod was built on which game?

ARMA 2. His DayZ: Battle Royale mod grew out of the open-world mod DayZ, and when DayZ went standalone he rebuilt the mode for ARMA 3.

PUBG creator Brendan Greene was a photographer in which country when he made his first battle royale mod?

Brazil. Greene had barely played games there until he found the DayZ mod and taught himself scripting on his own server.

Why are PUBG's safe zones circular rather than the squares Greene originally wanted?

His inexperience at coding. Greene wanted square zones like those in the film Battle Royale but couldn't program them, so he used a circle.

Before PUBG, Greene consulted for Sony Online Entertainment on the battle royale mode of which game?

H1Z1. Sony licensed his battle royale mode as an official H1Z1 game mode and brought Greene on as a consultant.

Which South Korean company hired Greene as creative director to build PUBG?

Bluehole. Greene says it was the first time a Korean studio had hired a foreigner as creative director, and he moved to Seoul to lead the team.

Which game engine was PUBG built on?

Unreal Engine 4. Greene said its big engine team made building far easier than on in-house engines, though maps this large needed heavy engine changes.

What was PUBG Corporation's 2018 campaign to squash bugs and speed up the game called?

Fix PUBG. The studio openly admitted the game was broken, then declared the campaign a success three months later once all 100 listed fixes had shipped.

Which country is PUBG creator Brendan Greene from?

Ireland. After moving back home, he lived on social welfare while running his battle royale mods, which earned him nothing.

Which anti-cheat service policed PUBG's servers in 2017?

BattlEye. It blamed most cheating on China, fuelling calls for region locks that Greene said just don't work, though a 2018 update began matching players by region.

What does a plane drop when a PUBG player fires a flare gun inside the safe zone?

A supply package with rare loot. Fired outside the safe zone, the same flare calls in an armoured vehicle instead.

In PUBG, what happens inside the red zones that appear on the map during a match?

Bombing. Players get a few minutes' warning, and anyone who can't get out of the red zone can shelter inside a building.

On which console did PUBG launch as a timed exclusive in December 2017?

Xbox One. Microsoft's Gears of War studio, The Coalition, helped PUBG's team build the Xbox port.

PUBG's PlayStation 4 version included which exclusive Uncharted cosmetic?

Nathan Drake's outfit. To mark the PS4 launch, Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts made a live-action PUBG short film.

In January 2022, PUBG switched to which business model?

Free to play. Anyone who had already bought the game was automatically upgraded to the paid Battlegrounds Plus tier, which unlocks ranked matches.

Which Chinese company won the rights to publish PUBG in China and developed PUBG Mobile?

Tencent. It released two official PUBG phone games in China, one close to the PC game and one arcade-style with naval battles.

Under what title was PUBG Mobile re-released in China in 2019 to satisfy content rules?

Game for Peace. Unable to win government approval to sell in-game items for over a year, the publisher pulled PUBG Mobile.

After India banned PUBG's phone version in 2020, Krafton relaunched it there in 2021 under what name?

Battlegrounds Mobile India. The government blocked it too in 2022, and it returned to Indian phones in May 2023.

Which Indian state banned PUBG in March 2019 as an addictive distraction during exam season?

Gujarat. Police there arrested students who were caught playing the game.

PUBG Corporation sued the maker of which game over a battle royale mode released in September 2017?

Fortnite. PUBG's makers said they claimed no ownership of battle royale, then dropped the suit in June 2018 without saying why.

PUBG's lawsuit against NetEase targeted which two mobile games?

Rules of Survival and Knives Out. NetEase denied infringing PUBG's copyright when PUBG Corp complained to Apple about the games, and the two settled by March 2019.

Which mode did PUBG's developers announce in 2017 after streamers' custom games caught on?

Zombie mode. In those matches, every player but one four-person squad played the undead, armed only with melee weapons.

In October 2017, PUBG passed which game as the most played in South Korea's internet cafés?

League of Legends. Overwatch had briefly led it there in 2016, only to fall back behind the long-running MOBA.

What reason did India's government give for banning PUBG Mobile in 2020?

Data security. The game's South Korean owner responded by taking over its publishing in India.

Which long-reigning title did PUBG overtake in August 2017 to become the most played game on Steam?

Dota 2. Months earlier, some industry veterans on PUBG's own team had predicted just 200,000 to 300,000 sales in the game's first year.

Which Star Trek actor starred in PUBG's live-action documentaries about the origins of the Battlegrounds?

Jonathan Frakes. Krafton made the series to flesh out PUBG's backstory as it expanded the game's universe.

Which survival horror game began in the PUBG universe before dropping the link in 2022?

The Callisto Protocol. Creator Glen Schofield left his studio in 2023 after the game's sales disappointed.

When Brendan Greene stepped back from PUBG in 2019, which city did he move to for a new division?

Amsterdam. After two years on the road at conventions and events, Greene said he missed having a place to call home.

At The Game Awards 2017, PUBG won which category while still in early access?

Best Multiplayer. It was never announced during the broadcast, and host Geoff Keighley confirmed the winner the next day, calling it an oversight.

The 2000 Japanese film that inspired PUBG forces which group to fight to the death?

A class of schoolkids. Greene named his first mod, DayZ: Battle Royale, after the film, liking that it pitted everyone against everyone.

What keeps a standard PUBG match to about 30 minutes or less?

A shrinking play zone. A blue wall closes in every few minutes, and anyone caught outside it takes steady damage until they move inside.

PUBG's 'Pioneer Edition' was released in April 2020 on which cloud gaming service?

Stadia. Google shut the whole service down in January 2023, less than three years after PUBG arrived there.

How long did PUBG take to sell its first million copies in early access?

16 days. Greene had pitched it as 'a million month one, easy', and it beat even that boast.

Which studio did Krafton launch in 2019 under Dead Space creator Glen Schofield?

Striking Distance. Schofield had co-founded Activision's Sledgehammer Games, then left Activision in late 2018 before starting it.

Which country's telecom regulator banned PUBG in July 2020, then relented a month later?

Pakistan. The regulator lifted the ban after the publisher's legal representatives briefed it on controls to prevent misuse.

Which Castlevania producer did Krafton partner with in 2021 to develop an animated PUBG series?

Adi Shankar. Krafton said the deal was part of a push to expand PUBG beyond the game into a multimedia franchise.