PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds – aka the game that inspired and then was overtaken by Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode – is seemingly borrowing a leaf from its cartoony cousin’s playbook by resurrecting its original map.
PUBG’s return to Erangel – now dubbed Erangel Classic – will follow the approach taken by Fortnite through its own recent trip through seasons past in last year’s Season OG. As well as bringing back the original map layout and locations lost in subsequent updates, the time-trip will rebalance weapons with reduced recoil and a longer time to knock down enemies, reintroduce bench weapons, bring back fog and rain weather conditions and even tweak the game’s user interface – with “vintage” map, minimap and fonts that its developers generously call “charmingly tacky” – to indulge in that nostalgic 2017 feel.
As well as the wider gameplay tweaks, once you’ve landed on the island the Tommy Gun will once again appear in care packages and you’ll be able to grab clothes and helmets from the floor, just like the old (seven years ago) days.
Erangel Classic will replace the latest evolution of the game’s map for two weeks from May 14th until May 28th, during which you’ll be able to find it by entering a Normal Match.
No doubt PUBG’s devs are hoping the blast from the past does for the slightly greyer battle royale shooter what it did for Fortnite, with a record-breaking 44 million players playing the shooter-slash-virtual music concert-slash-Lego toybox-slash-Disney game-slash-metaverse-slash-survival game-slash-money printer.
The seemingly Fortnite-inspired move is the second such nod PUBG has made toward its ridiculously popular rival in recent months, with the recent introduction of destructible terrain putting it closer to the build-and-destroy loop of its crafty counterpart.