PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is a standout title for many reasons, one of which is it progressing rather quickly on development and being one of the few successful Early Access titles to make it out unscathed. It seems that development has been slowing, however, as PUBG Corp states that the effort to combat cheaters has detracted from its upcoming ping-based matchmaking and inevitable third map.

There has been a lot of debate surrounding PUBG’s anti-cheat measures and while third-party help from BattlEye has amounted to over 1 million cheaters being permanently booted from the game in January alone, there’s nothing stopping them from buying another account. PUBG Corp has stated that its focus has “shifted towards tightening our anti-cheat effort” despite major features and improvements suffering because of it.

While facts and figures have yet to be revealed despite false numbers floating around the web, BattlEye has said that “the vast majority is from China,” which has caused outcry for region locking on the servers. One such method to help with this is ping-based matchmaking, which would “divide the matching pool depending on ping,” describes PUBG Corp.

“This means that the users with lower pings will be prioritized during matchmaking. The team is expecting to improve the overall play experience by splitting the matching pool rather than restricting connection depending on ping. Preparations are underway to test this method in some regions, with first trials planned to start this week. Specific dates will be shared when ready.”

Unfortunately, this has taken a back seat for the time being, as has the game’s third map, which is to still be expected within the first half of 2018. This is said to be set around the Adriatic Sea, featuring both sandy coastlines and snowy mountains to contrast the grassy Erangel set in Russia and the wasteland of Miramar set in Central America.

Instead, PUBG Corp and publisher Bluehole are set to release a roadmap of game updates in March that should better outline where the title is headed in the first half of the year. Conversely, scheduling has proved to be an increasing problem for the team in the past, as PUBG scrapped its monthly updates in favour of a timetable that allowed for more wiggle room.

KitGuru Says: If BattlEye’s statement and player beliefs are correct, ping-based matchmaking would help preserve happiness across the board, so I’m unsure why efforts on that particular feature would slow down. Hopefully this releases soon. Are you excited for ping-based matchmaking? What do you want from the new map?

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