PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has had an aggressive weekly patch schedule since it was first released to Steam Early Access in March. That hasn’t worked as well in recent weeks, so the development team at Bluehole, Inc announced changes to the battle royale shooter’s update schedule to improve the quality of releases.
The most recent PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) monthly update is the perfect example of the challenges Bluehole faced with its update schedule. The update contained highly anticipated new features like the first-person mode but didn’t make it to the public test servers until the day before it released. This gave the developers no time to react to issues with lag and framerate with that build of the game. They then spent a couple of days fixing the update, which then put a strain on the amount of work that could be performed on the following weekly update.
“We’ve found internally that being rushed to finish certain features, and having shorter QA test time between pushing updates caused more issues than it solved in regards to maintaining a high standard of quality,” Bluehole explained in a note to the community. “We want to put our best content out, and ensure that everything we do is making the game more enjoyable with every update.”
PUBG will not have a set patch schedule, for now. Bluehole will instead release updates to the game when it is confident they have been tested thoroughly. The main benefit to this will be a more robust use of the test servers to flesh out new features and other changes fully before they are introduced to the live game.
Bluehole went on to emphasize that the change in the PUBG update schedule does not alter its release plans for later the fourth quarter of this year. The game recently hit a slight delay but should remain on track thanks to the focused development efforts of Bluehole. An Xbox One release is also planned after the shooter exits Steam Early Access.
Future features to PUBG include the ability for players to vault/mantle on top of objects. A recent Nvidia promotional video interview with Community Lead Sammie Kang revealed these new character animations so that players may climb on top of walls, cars, ledges, and other objects. This should add a dynamic new level of gameplay to the shooter.
Two new maps are also coming to PUBG at some point. A desert-themed map has already been teased, but it is unknown when Bluepoint plans to release the next.
What do you think of the changes to the PUBG patch schedule? Sound off in the comments below.
[Featured Image by Bluehole, Inc]
