It’s March 2017. The Battle Royale genre as we know it today is exploding in popularity, with H1Z1 leading the charge. But several games are about to change multiplayer gaming. One of them is PUBG. It launched in March 2017 in early access with one map, Erangel. Seven years later, we are returning to Erangel’s roots with Erangel Classic.
For two weeks starting May 14, Erangel Classic will return. This will be the fan-favorite map as it was when it first launched. Hell, we’re even getting some of the old UI elements back.
While Erangel will return to its classic roots, the gameplay evolution we’ve seen over the past seven years will mostly remain intact with one curious change. From the developers:
“The firearms carry a certain nostalgic touch, too… That’s right, we’ve reduced recoil! While not an exact replica of the old recoil, players will still be able to reminisce about those early PUBG days.”
PUBG’s developers touched on gunplay changes as part of their 2024 roadmap. An SMG rebalance is already live in the game’s Arcade mode, including recoil decreases across the board. The developers could be using the Erangel Classic event to test out reduced recoil for all the weapons.
The developers have promised that more significant changes will be applied to a dedicated playlist in Arcade mode before it is fully implemented in Normal and Ranked matches. But we’ll also see smaller weapon changes go live occasionally in monthly updates. The small buffs to the SCAR-L and AKM are good examples of this. Both were improved slightly in the most recent Update 29.1.
As for new maps? We haven’t heard anything official on that front. But the team did say there was some content that “is still too early to unveil in this roadmap.” We do know that work towards transitioning PUBG to Unreal Engine 5 is underway. And the team continues to work on what they call a “User Generated Content (UGC) service.”
I’m curious to see how far this UGC service goes. Could we get a map editor similar to Halo’s Forge? Fortnite is an excellent example of how a game’s community can help keep a game as popular as ever.
For now, the most faithful PUBG fans will get a hefty dose of nostalgia as the Erangel Classic returns on May 14.