‘PUBG’ 1.0 Launch Coming December 20, New Desert Map Drops On Test Servers Friday Morning
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds fans will finally get their first taste of the new desert map, dubbed Miramar. Bluehole also set a firm date on when the battle royale shooter will exit Steam Early Access during The Game Awards show Thursday evening.
Miramar will drop on the PUBG test servers at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT. PC gamers will have full access to the new desert map along with the new content contained within.
The release of the new map marks the start of the third and final phase of testing until the release of PUBG. Bluehole threw down a marker on December 20 as the date when the title finally exits Steam Early Access.
The Miramar map layout was unveiled earlier Thursday, but the release announcement video is the first time fans get to see it in action. It has a definite desert feel with the addition of vehicles such as a desert buggy, dirt bikes, and even an old-school VW Bus.
Other new PUBG vehicles include a two-seater pickup truck plus an SUV that looks like it was pulled straight out of the old Chuck Norris film Lone Wolf McQuade. There’s also a two-seat Waverunner to get around in the water off Miramar’s coast. Meanwhile, some of the new weapons are desert-theme-appropriate as well, such as the lever-action Winchester rifle and the R45 Revolver.
While PUBG finally has a firm release date on the PC, there has been no word on how Bluehole will handle loot boxes and microtransactions going forward post-release. A brief test during a Gamescom tournament in August upset fans who did not expect to see microtransaction yet. Creative director Brendan Greene has repeatedly stated that there will not be any gameplay affecting content in the loot boxes, however.
Meanwhile, the Xbox One Game Preview release of PUBG is still set for Tuesday, December 12. A partially live-action trailer for the console launch was shown during The Game Awards show. Bluehole’s partnership with Microsoft brought in the assistance of the in-house Unreal Engine 4 experts and developers of Gears of War 4, The Coalition.
PUBG will support higher resolutions on the Xbox One X but is confirmed to run at 30 frames per second (fps) initially. Bluehole hopes to up that to 60 fps on both consoles later during the Game Preview period. The Xbox version will contain all features and content except the Miramar map, which will arrive later.
