Battlegrounds Mobile India First Impressions: PUBG Mobile Similarities and Differences

Battlegrounds Mobile India Early Access went live on Thursday, with the game being made available in beta via Google Play. We managed to get our hands on it, and played a full match. It is clear that Battlegrounds Mobile India is essentially PUBG Mobile with minor tweaks, which we'll get into in a bit. With the open beta being made available just ahead of the previously expected June 18 release date, we're unsure how long this beta phase will last or what the release date will be. Here are our first impressions of Battlegrounds Mobile India's Early Access build.

If you're a PUBG Mobile fan, right from when you open Battlegrounds Mobile India on your Android device, everything will be familiar. After logging in with your previous PUBG Mobile credentials, or creating an account, you are greeted with the same home screen and background music as PUBG Mobile. And the best part is, you get to transfer your in-game data over from PUBG Mobile. We'll publish a how-to soon. Interestingly, there were prompts asking if the player is over 18 and if they are in India, and unfortunately at this stage it appears you can simple respond to this with 'yes', without any verification needed.

We immediately jumped into Erangel with the Season 19's Traverse – Insectoid theme and heard the safe gaming narration stating this is a simulation, it does not represent real life, and to not spend long hours playing. This appears to happen every time you start a match - which may get a bit annoying, but, may be a much-needed reminder during long sessions. Unsurprisingly, the match was filled with bots and we did not come across a single real player. It was like the initial days of PUBG Mobile all over again.

The Erangel map in Battlegrounds Mobile India is the very same as PUBG Mobile, you pick up familiar weapons and equipment, using the same customisable controls. An advantage of the game being exclusive to India is that it was a quick and smooth experience throughout without any lag, frame drops, or ping issues. Though the experience may change a bit when actual players are on the same server.

Battlegrounds Mobile India brings back the same maps, same weapons, gameplay mechanics, and overall appeal as PUBG Mobile, except, it has been repackaged for Indian users. It does make a few minor changes though. The blood in-game is now green instead of red. On the top left where it showed the number of players that are ‘Alive' and the number of players you've ‘Killed', now shows ‘Alive' and ‘Finished.' Another move in the name of safety? You can't select your server in Battlegrounds Mobile India as the option has been disabled. It is unclear if this option will be available in the future.

As mentioned, Krafton opened beta testing for Battlegrounds Mobile India on Thursday for a limited number of users, and we were able to get access to the game.

Battlegrounds Mobile India took 6.06GB of storage on the device we tested it (OnePlus 7 Pro) and is at version 1.4.0. It requires permission to access the phone's storage and no other permission was asked for. If you use in-game chat then it will ask you to give microphone permission. As of now, Krafton has not shared a release date for the game and it is unclear how long it will be in open beta phase.