PUBG on Xbox One is even clunkier, but still brilliant

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is undoubtedly the breakout hit of 2017, with over 25 million copies sold on Steam and Dota 2’s record for most concurrent players shattered in its wake. That’s not bad for a company’s first game, especially since it technically hasn’t even been released yet: PUBG is only set to leave early access with a “finished” 1.0 version for PC next week.

PUBG might not be the most conventional of game-of-the-year contenders, but Microsoft’s console exclusivity coup shouldn’t be underestimated. The game comes out today in preview for Xbox One, bringing a legitimate cultural phenomenon to console players for the first time. In a year that’s been light on significant Xbox-only releases, this is a big deal.

But neither Microsoft nor developer Bluepoint have shown off the Xbox version in action before release, raising questions about how well it’ll actually run. Despite its rough-and-ready visuals, PUBG is a hugely resource-intensive game on PCs, requiring a powerful setup to play with higher graphical settings at a fast frame rate. Is it even possible to adequately reproduce the experience on the Xbox One’s comparatively weak CPU?

As it turns out, it is. PUBG for Xbox One is a compromised port, to be sure, but one that retains what makes the game so raucous and addictive on PC.

Just to recap exactly what that is, PUBGis an action game that sees 100 unarmed players jump out of a plane and parachute wherever they want to land on a vast island. They must arm themselves and fight until only one remains, and the play space is constantly shrinking so that everyone is eventually forced into close proximity. PUBG is conceptually simple but psychologically complex. Every tiny move you make can be a life-or-death decision, meaning that even hiding in a closet can be unbearably tense. It is, in short, a blast.