PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is one of the original online multiplayer battle royale games where players drop in an open zone, gather gear, and fight against each other to be the last man standing. To succeed in PUBG, you need a combination of good positioning, mechanical skill, and gear. Whether you’re starting out as a new player or as an experienced veteran, this article will provide you with a few general tips and strategies to improve your overall gameplay.

Core Mechanics

The first thing you should know is that movement in this game is sluggish by design. Unlike other battle royales like Apex Legends or Warzone, moving out in the open with little cover is guaranteed to get you killed since your overall movement is slow. You are incentivized to always move and shoot from cover to cover, minimizing your hitbox’s exposure to enemy fire.

Speaking of hitboxes, one healthy habit you need to cultivate is always leaning left and right through corners. This is a lifesaving habit, as leaning allows you to gain better angled sightlines, which protects your hitbox’s center of mass while giving you full vision to shoot an incoming enemy. Many pro players take advantage of this mechanic by leaning in and out of cover to make it harder for their opponents to land a shot on them, especially when hiding behind smaller cover like trees or rocks.

Understanding the map you play in is crucial in earning a chicken dinner, as keeping track of sightlines, possible cover and building layouts helps you ambush and evade enemy players better.

Now comes the most important part of PUBG: the loot. Weapons, attachments, ammo types, armor, and consumables determine your chances of victory. You will have a better chance of finding better, high-tier loot in hotspots, but everyone else in the lobby has the same idea. Unless you are confident in your chances, land somewhere on the outskirts and get the basic equipment needed to survive. It’s better that you land on a quiet spot and get all level 1 gear than bank your chances to get level 3 gear on a hotspot and get sent back to the lobby.

Choosing Your Weapon

PUBG is nothing without its selection of guns to use on the battlefield, from the classic M416 to the iconic AWM, many guns have different use scenarios and ranges that they excel and struggle at. The three important mechanics to consider when choosing a weapon to run with are recoil, muzzle velocity, and damage.

Starting with recoil and accuracy in general, your movement and stances determine how accurate your shots are. Moving around while shooting will kill your accuracy and make recoil unmanageable. If you want to hit your shots more consistently, stand still near a piece of cover and shoot. The recoil drastically improves across the board when crouching or going prone. Another way to reduce it is by manually compensating your shots by pulling down on the mouse as you shoot on full auto, as many pro players pull down to compensate using muscle memory. To cultivate that muscle memory, practice and learn a weapon’s recoil pattern so you can get an idea of how you can maintain accuracy.

Muzzle velocity is another factor to consider when choosing a weapon since all shots are subject to projectile physics. Some bullets travel faster than others and straighter, while other bullets are slower and require target tracking. If you want to shoot a target without needing to lead your shots, get a gun with high muzzle velocity.

Damage determines your time-to-kill values when hitting an enemy. While having a fast TTK is nice, you can’t kill a target if you can't land your shots in the first place, so make sure to pick a weapon that suits your ideal engagement ranges and usability.

Inventory Management

It’s tempting to bring a lot of ammo for future engagements, but staying stocked up on other items like healing, grenades, and other consumables is superior to carrying 300 5.56 ammo around with you. Realistically speaking, it's highly likely that you won't be fighting often unless you’re playing with Duos, Trios, or Quads. Even then, you still need to rely on your squad to fight with you, so carrying too much ammo is detrimental to your chances of survival. Ideally, you should carry at least the following: 2 bandages, 3 first aids, 1 med kit, 4 energy drinks, an extra 4x scope, 20 bullets for bolt action sniper, 140 bullets for an assault rifle of your choice, 3 flashbangs, 4 smoke, 6 frags + 1 in the grenade slot.

General Tips

  • Always try to get a couple of headshots whenever you can since that will drastically cut your TTK. Land at least one headshot in your burst so you can kill quicker with body shots.
  • Always experiment with different weapons. Even if you have a gun that you really like, you may not always find it the moment you land on the ground. Familiarize yourself with the different ARs, SMGs, DMRs, and shotguns so you can respond to threats in variable ranges.
  • Vehicles in PUBG are a player’s best friend since they provide mobile cover and quick map traversal. Even if vehicles can be shot at and destroyed, most vehicles have enough health to withstand a full magazine, and the high viewpoint you have while driving a vehicle gives you the best situational awareness to spot otherwise hidden enemies. Once you spot a target, you can quickly hop out of the vehicle, take cover behind the chassis, and fire back.
  • The best teams and squads have one thing in common: Clear communication. Coordinating with your fellow players on squad tactics, pointing out enemy positions, and inventory management is much easier when communicating with them, especially on voice chat. While it is possible to win with random players, playing with people you know will drastically make fights easier for you.
  • Try to predict where the zone will close near the endgame. Many players win the final few zones by hunkering down on a highly secure building or position that leaves little exposure. Oftentimes, these positions will still be in the safe zone as the circle gets closer, so take advantage of them when you can. Should you find yourself outside a fortified area, do what you can to conceal your push with smoke grenades or flush them out with explosive grenades or flashbangs.
  • Learn from the best of the best. Watching how the best streamers play PUBG can help you identify some patterns and habits that they do to win matches. Knowing how they fight will give you an idea of how they start and end engagements. If you can, also record your own gameplay and rewatch it to see the mistakes you’ve made so that you can be aware of your points of improvement. Making more conscious efforts to improve will eventually become muscle memory for you.
  • Don’t feel disheartened whenever you lose a match. Consider it a learning experience of how you can improve on a match. Even the pros lose matches and make mistakes, which they then analyze their gameplay and discuss how they could have better fought in that gunfight.
  • Lastly, stay updated with upcoming patches to the game, as the developers will always make sure to shift the weapon balance, nerfing overperforming weapons while buffing weapons that are lagging behind. Keep an eye out for other content updates, like new weapons or other item types that can change the sandbox.

Following these basic tips and strategies can enhance your skills and increase your chances of getting a chicken dinner for you and your team in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Remember to be patient, stay focused, and, most importantly, have fun.