player unknown battlegrounds is set in an expansive world large enough for 100 players to compete in one giant survival game. There are cities to explore, hundreds of buildings to loot and lots of weapons and gear to find. I have been playing for months and have yet to see every area on the map.
As the game progresses you are forced into an increasingly smaller area by a blue force field that shrinks the playing area from time to time. Stay outside the playing area and damage is incurred. It is vitally important later in the game to pay attention to your proximity to the "safe zone" because staying outside of the safe zone causes more and more damage as games go on. And there is nothing glamorous about being one of those poor souls who die tragically outside of the playing zone.
Because the playing area is shrinking, encounters with enemies becomes inevitable and one by one, player after player succumbs to bullets, grenades or the blue force field and eventually only one triumphant player is left standing in this virtual coliseum. It took me a long time to earn my chicken dinner but the feeling of finally accomplishing the task was euphoric.
The game is large scale and done right and you don't need a NASA super computer to play it. Tweak the graphics to low settings (or lowest) and you can play this game with reasonable frame rates with a $100 graphics card. that being said, this is one of those games that makes even the most budget conscious gamers break the bank and upgrade their GPU's just to see what this visually appealing game looks like under better settings. I'm running an 8GB AMD RX 480 and I turn down the graphics in preference to better frame rates and performance. In this way my machine gets 80FPS in almost all but the most demanding of scenarios. But I did have to create a custom fan profile to keep my GPU cool as the card kept creeping up to the 70 degree Celsius and didn't like that very much. I don't mind the extra noise - I wear noise canceling headsets while gaming.
Early in the game you are concerned about looting - get the best nearby loot as quick as you can before somebody kills you quickly with a deadly weapon that they were lucky enough to find before you did. Once you survive for a while and are sufficiently looted your attention turns to survival and getting into the best position tactically while waiting on the inevitable blue force field. Don't get too comfortable! That next safe zone could be far enough away that you have a long hike that places you in open territory and in harm's way. Finding a vehicle and marking its location is never a bad idea - it beats running a long distance to the safe zone. But be warned - vehicles aren't tanks - you can and will get shot out of them. And they take damage and can be blown up. With you and your mates inside (if playing duos or squads!)
The developers of this game seem more tuned into the desires of the community that other games. They've added new weapons from time to time, made more random environmental conditions possible and when the community asked for 1st person options - Blue Hole made it happen.
It's a fun game, done well and once paid for - there's no "season pass" or other garbage to buy. I'm gonna go play now! Hope to see you on the battlefield - er... battleground!