PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG as many abbreviate it, is one of the biggest multiplayer games to launch this year. With over 4 million total players hunting each other on the PC version, and an Xbox One version on the horizon, just how could PUBG get any better? Well, with the introduction of cross play, perhaps?
With Minecraft and Rocket League allowing PC, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One players to join forces–or the opposite–without having to buy rival platforms, console gaming is seemingly friendlier than ever. PlayerUnknown’s Battleground’s executive producer Chang Han Kim wants a piece of the cake, too.
“Cross network play between the PC and the console is definitely something we want to do down the road, and we don’t anticipate we’ll have any technical issues with that,” Kim said in an interview with VG247.
“But… when you consider the competitive side of the game, I do feel that there’s a balance issue between controllers and keyboard and mouse. That’s what’s making it difficult for us to do right away. If we’re going to allow players to use controllers we need to have the aim assist added in and things like that. We’re not going to be supporting it right away, but it’s something we’d like to look into later.”
Kim’s worry when it comes to balancing between PC and console users is very warranted, especially when you take some of gaming’s previous efforts into account. The 2007 FPS Shadowrun allowed cross-platform play between both Games for Windows Live users and Xbox 360 players back in the day; it was an absolute bloodbath with 360 players getting slaughtered against their keyboard and mouse wielding foes. Modern games, such as Minecraft, Gears of War 4 and Rocket League are games that take numerous actions to make sure that gamers are having a fair experience across platforms.
Gears of War 4 has full cross play support for co-optional modes with ranked matches having a toggle, allowing users to opt in or out of matches against PC players. Minecraft is mostly a co-operative experience too, and its clunky combat isn’t the game’s focus. Rocket League? Well, control setup doesn’t really seem to matter much. Nevertheless, bringing a competitive multiplayer game like PUBG to a cross-play experience may not seem like the smartest thing to do, but hopefully the developers can figure out a way to balance the feature properly.
