PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds 1.0 Is Nearly Here

This is a strange sentence to read in December of 2017: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is getting an official release. You know, that battle royale shooter videogame that millions of people have been playing for the better part of this year. Per the game’s official Twitter, version 1.0 is hitting the PC tonight.

Players, we will be leaving Early Access and launching PC 1.0 on Dec 20 11PM PST. The maintenance on live servers for 1.0 will start Dec 20 6PM PST / Dec 21 3AM CET and last for 5 hours. 1.0 release patch notes and our plans beyond the release will be shared with you soon.

— PLAY BATTLEGROUNDS (@PUBATTLEGROUNDS) December 20, 2017

That’s right, Battlegrounds is coming out of Early Access. Since the game came to Steam in March of this year, numerous changes have been implemented or announced, including climbing and vaulting, full 3D replays and the new desert map called “Miramar.”

PUBG is also in early access exclusively for the Xbox One, with that version releasing earlier in the month; a tech analysis from Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry (and also from our own damn eyeballs) show that the game is in a rough state at the moment, with major frame-rate issues, pop-in and other graphical quirks.

Also in the past year, PUBG competitors (or possible copycats) like Fortnite Battle Royale have emerged, and other videogames like GTA Online have added similar game modes as well—the battle royale genre is here to stay, it seems.

As mentioned, v1.0 will launch later tonight—prepare yourself to airdrop onto an island full of murderin’.