PUBG is not your typical shooter. The aim is to survive, not to get the most kills – in fact, you can win without getting a single one – so your usual shooter strategy needs to adapt.
The prevailing meta, so to speak, is stealth. In fact, many of the highest-ranking players who are aiming to compete at tournaments simply rely on ‘boring’ stealth strategies, like hiding offshore on boats, to see them through to the final gunfight at the end of a round.
But that’s not the whole story – combat, for starters, is great practice. PUBG’s combat mechanics are a little odd and mastering those makes a massive difference to how many final-10 situations you’ll win.
Likewise, mid-game kills are a great way to take your gear from passable to excellent. And finally, if you do get spotted hiding in a bush, it helps to know how to shoot the one who found you.
The general flow of a game then is roughly as follows:
You’ll spawn in the plane and need to choose somewhere to land. In short, you would want to avoid high-traffic areas like major towns and cities and find a safe little spot to loot some weapons and equipment on your own.
Then, when you’re all set (or run out of things to loot before the electrical field starts getting close) it’s a case of going where the white circle is. You’ll need to find safe points to rest, loot, and defend yourself along the way, while the player count gradually drops until you ideally reach the last 10 or 15 players. At that point, most people’s strategies go out the window and chaos ensue.
Setting up and basic controls
- Remember to put away your weapon (the X key on PC), meaning you can sprint six per cent faster.
- In the pre-game, take off your shoes. Barefoot running is the same speed as running with shoes, but you’re noticeably quieter on most surfaces.
- To refuel, the vehicle needs to be completely static, but you can still refuel from within the car by right-clicking the cannister in your inventory.
- Use map markers at all times and call out specific directions (numbers as well as North/South/East/West) when in a team.
- You can stay in the game’s voice chat but set your own chat to party-only – occasionally you’ll overhear enemy teams who forgot to set theirs to private.
- Remember to toggle your rate of fire with the B key or left on the d-pad on the console.
- There are not two, but three types of aiming. Hip fire, a more accurate hip-fire (holding right mouse button) and aiming-down-sights (‘ADS’, by tapping right mouse-button). You’ll also be able to change the settings to go straight to ADS by holding right-click rather than toggling it on/off.
Now that you have the basics, go have a stab at PUBG on your own. In the next article, we’ll look at strategies, priorities along with other useful controls and hotkeys.
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