PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is a battle royale game focused on scavenging weapons and using stealth or other tactics to be the last person alive. While the title has see unprecedented popularity on Steam and other platforms like the Xbox One, it still suffers from a lack of optimization. For example, even with one of the best NVIDIA cards out there, you frequently see drops down to 30 FPS at moderate settings. The base Xbox One version drops down even further, and the Xbox One X port doesn't take advantage of the added power in a meaningful way.
A few months ago, developer Bluehole launched a campaign called "Fix PUBG". According to the company, "This is a phrase that we've been hearing a lot lately. Bugs, performance problems, and quality-of-life issues have been limiting PUBG's true potential, and you want it fixed. So we think it's time to do something about it." The team revealed a roadmap with specific goals like "Client Performance," "Server Performance," "Anti-Cheat," "Matchmaking," and "Quality of Life."
Since the start of the Fix PUBG campaign, the development team at PUBG has prioritized tasks around improving core performance of the game while fixing longstanding bugs. To accomplish these tasks within our allotted time frame, all available development resources were assigned to the campaign. However, due to several new stability issues that arose apart from Fix PUBG, we wanted to hold off on completing the campaign these last few weeks while we worked on resolving those issues... While this is the end of the Fix PUBG campaign, we will go forward in our development, improve our processes, and redouble our efforts with the lessons learned.
When you hear the phrase "Fix PUBG," you naturally assume that Bluehole would tackle the performance issues above all else. Well, that didn't seem to be what the campaign was about. Instead of fixing the frame rate on consoles in particular, the developer released bizarre Joker and Harley Quinn-themed content that may have cost more to license than the development of the base game.
Today, Bluehole announced that it was abandoning Fix PUBG and instead focusing on build stability and quality. According to a report by Eurogamer, the team said that "While this is the end of the Fix PUBG campaign, we will go forward in our development, improve our processes, and redouble our efforts with the lessons learned." It's unclear if build stability and quality refers to performance on consoles or other issues. Hopefully the frame rate and visual quality will be the focus here. At this rate it doesn't seem like PUBG will be truly "fixed" anytime soon, especially on Xbox One.
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