Bluehole Reduces Frequent Updates For 'PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'

Since its launch in Early Access in March, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds received multiple updates — 14, to be exact — but with the release window approaching fast, Bluehole will reduce the frequency of these updates. According to a recent announcement on the game’s Steam page, the studio’s reasons for the change is to increase the quality of each update and to give players “realistic expectations” of the amount of time it takes to release new content.

Prior to the announcement, the developers released weekly and monthly updates, but they discovered that these scheduled rollouts weren’t working. Implementation of new features were rushed, and the reduced testing time yielded more problems than solutions. With each update, the studio released additional patches at later dates to fix lingering issues. By reducing the amount of scheduled updates, developers have more time to test new content to ensure that it’s free of any major problems. In addition to internal trials, the developers also intend to utilize the test servers for longer periods of time in order to show off features and get more feedback from players.

“We want to put our best content out, and ensure that everything we do is making the game more enjoyable with every update,” Bluehole said. “This will result in our live build being more exciting for everyone and drastically reduce the amount of unforeseen issues.”

Even with the reduced frequency of the updates, the studio assured that the game’s final version is still on schedule to release sometime at the end of the year. It was initially scheduled to come out of its Early Access phase next month, but it was delayed to provide more time for additional development. The latest update, which came out earlier this month, added the ability to create scenarios that restricted gameplay to first-person view mode, and you can finally re-enter a match if you’re disconnected.