What makes PUBG the best game

BENGALURU: If you have managed to keep yourself off online multiplayer games so far, the Battle Royale format might finally be your gateway to this glorious world. There are a lot of names thrown around that might get you confused — Overwatch has been top ranked in PC games for quite some time with it’s amazing character choices and Team Fortress has been a free-to-play Steam classic for years. Recently, we find new players who have entered the arena. Fortnite (which elitists may call a cartoony PUBG rip-off) which was in early access for a long time has now blown up in terms of the number of virtual players.

But today I want to discuss PUBG, which is now playable on phones - and the best Battle Royale ever. Here’s why: Equality (sort of): If you’re not too high up level-wise, don’t worry — no one else is. Which means everyone is dropped into the arena without guns and you need to scrounge around to find some (don’t take a shotgun, the reload time is slow and the aim is terrible).

Constant movement: The snipers, and those proning behind bushes and amidst tall grass will not survive till game end. The arena has “red zones” every other minute which blow up at random — so waiting at a vantage point to shoot others is not a long-term strategy. The arena also keeps reducing in size (like how the hunger games work) and you have to keep moving into the inner circle so that you don’t get killed by the force field. This means that you can’t stay hiding in a safe corner of a random room in a random building.

Lots of players means greater newb proportion: The match starts out with a hundred players, and there’s always one or two bound to be inexperienced who run directly in your path. Before they even figure out what’s happening and turn their heads in the direction of the gun shots, you’ll have reduced them to a crate of ammo (you can go loot all their stuff after the kill) — giving you a nice confidence boost to survive through the next few minutes.

Anusha Ganapathi 

Twitter@quaffle_waffle

(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)