Sling your mind back to last October and you might remember PUBG Studios (yes, that PUBG) unveiling a new 5v5 PvP shooter featuring ‘shared real-time line of sight’. Well, it’s back, it’s got a proper name now, and there’s a demo on the way.
When we last saw PUBG Studios’ new title, it was going by the name of Project ARC and being described as a “realistic and fast-paced top-down shooting experience inspired by PUBG: Battlegrounds”. Four months – and doubtless some arcane process involving an awful lot of Post-It notes – later, it’s been renamed to PUBG: Blindspot.
What we have here is a 5v5 top-down tactical shooter where teams are either charged with hacking or defending a hidden crypt each game. The hacking team must blow up the walls surrounding the crypt to gain access and install a Decrypter device, while the defending team tries to stop them. But why, you might be asking yourself, is it called Blindspot?
Well that, I assume, brings us back to the aforementioned shared line of sight, with enemies vanishing and reappearing across the map depending what individual teammates can see – a system intended to add a further tactical wrinkle through “immediate, non-verbal cooperation”. Chuck in characters with their own preferred weapons and distinctive gadgets, alongside the promise of “skill-based, thrilling” gunfights, and that’s all the basics covered.
PUBG: Blindspot doesn’t have a release date yet, but if the brisk run-down above has left you in anyway intrigued, a demo will be available from 21st February as part of Steam Next Fest. It’ll feature 10 unique characters with their own signature weapons and special tools, three team deathmatch maps, and four demolition mission maps, giving players a “chance to experience what [the team has] been cooking up so far”.
In semi-related news, PUBG creator Brendan Greene last year revealed an “ambitious” three-project plan for his PlayerUnknown Productions studio. This included a single-player open-world “emergent” survival game known as Prologue: Go Wayback, an “immersive” tech demo titled Preface: Undiscovered World, and the still-mysterious Project Artemis.