PUBG Mods May Not Be Allowed Due to 'Security and Privacy Aspects': Brendan Greene

Hit battle royale shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) may not be the number one in the space after the success of Fortnite Battle Royale, but that's not stopped the developers at PUBG Corp from supporting the game with a constant flow of updates. Despite its PC roots, the game hasn't allowed for user-created content or modifications, more commonly known as mods. PUBG creator Brendan Greene explained why this is the case in an interview with Eurogamer, stating it has to do with security concerns and likened PUBG's Custom Games options to "modding light". When asked if new game modes would help PUBG stack up against the likes of Black Ops 4 and Battlefield, Greene replied with the following:

"Oh for sure. I want Battlegrounds not just to be battle royale I want it to be a great platform for people to create their own games. With our Custom Games server we really want to give fine grain control over what you can control in the game, and do it via UI so it's almost like modding - I don't know if we could ever allow full modding because of security and privacy aspects that you have to consider - with "modding light" almost with Custom Games, I really want to be able to give people a platform to create their own spins on battle royale or even other game modes that have nothing to do with battle royale. It's really just giving them a platform," Greene said.

PUBG Is 'Here to Stay and Compete With CSGO': GamingMonk

In addition to this, Greene shed light on PUBG's e-sports plans with PUBG Corp setting up infrastructure for the same the world over. 

"Right now this year we're really heavily investing into setting up an e-sports infrastructure, we're building an e-sports team globally now, between the US and Europe and Asia, and really trying to develop out the tools we need to support e-sport organisations and players in order to give a good foundation. So, that's where I want to see it in three years, I want to see it as a considered e-sport with events taking place in big stadiums and sort of year long leagues, that's what my dream for battle royale has been, that's where I want to see us go, and looking at what we're doing this year I really see that as a great chance," he said.

Sadly any information pertaining to the PUBG-NetEase lawsuit was off the table. That said, in the course of these proceedings, the developer had made it known that cosmetic micro-transactions in PUBG do indeed impact gameplay. This goes against what PUBG Corp said in the past, wherein it wouldn't add any micro-transactions that would affect gameplay.

“However, clothing does affect gameplay in terms of camouflage. Clothing can be used to assist the player to blend in with the environment, making the player less visually detectable. In particular, Battlegrounds includes a Ghillie suit, a full body suit covered with camouflaging material typically used by snipers. The Ghillie suit allows the player to become nearly visually invisible depending upon the terrain," reads a section of the suit as found on TorrentFreak (via Newsweek).

Previously PUBG Corp stated it would leave gameplay intact, preferring to focus on purely cosmetic items instead. This came to light at a developer panel featuring PUBG CEO Chang Han Kim and Lead Game Designer Junhyuk Choi at G-Star — a South Korean games expo.

“As you may already know, we will never add anything that affects the gameplay. However, there is a relatively strong demand for cosmetic items. Since the official launch is our top priority, we plan on adding new items after that,” Kim said previously, fielding a question on whether there would a new crate with a special items akin to what the company did during Gamescom.

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