PUBG: New State Brings the Brand Back to India, but It's a Lot More Than That

PUBG: New State, the new battle royale game from PUBG and PUBG Mobile publisher Krafton, was launched last week to deliver gamers the “next-generation” experience. The South Korean publisher has also chosen PUBG Studios for developing PUBG: New State. The developer previously showed off its work on the original PUBG: Battlegrounds for PCs and consoles. But to take on PUBG: New State in India, Krafton already has its India-exclusive title — Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI).

On this week's episode of Gadgets 360 podcast Orbital, host Akhil Arora speaks with Deputy Video Head Cyrus John and Video Editor Robin John to talk about PUBG: New State, and how it is different from BGMI.

Although PUBG: New State is set in 2051, its gameplay is quite similar to PUBG Mobile and BGMI. That said, the game does bring new weapons, and futuristic vehicles including electric cars and drones.

In some ways, it feels like a compressed version of the PUBG on PC that was launched back in 2017. PUBG: New State has improved graphics that require better resources from your phone. However, Krafton has not provided any particular minimum hardware requirements for the game, and it is compatible with all devices — at least on paper — that run on minimum Android 6.0, iOS 13, or iPadOS 13.

The arrival of PUBG: New State comes a little over a year after the Indian government banned PUBG Mobile. It also debuted just a few months after Krafton decided to bring its battle royale experience back for Indian gamers in the form of BGMI — which was PUBG Mobile for all intents and purposes.

PUBG New State Hands-On: Futuristic Enough?

PUBG: New State does have PUBG Studios as the new developer over China's Tencent Games to differentiate itself from the original PUBG Mobile. However, features such as the age verification mechanism on the game have not addressed the concerns that were raised against the earlier version.

Some users also noticed lags while playing PUBG: New State shortly after its launch. The publisher, though, did push an update earlier this week to fix some of the known issues.

In less than a week since its launch, PUBG: New State also managed to get one crore downloads on Google Play. This suggests early popularity of the title that comes after the success of PUBG Mobile and BGMI.

That said, gamers who don't have heavy duty hardware, or the ones who have already switched their profiles from PUBG Mobile, are not likely to go away from BGMI and move to PUBG: New State in the near future.

We discuss some of the reasons about why gamers may stick to BGMI — despite being offered with an upgraded experience on PUBG: New State. We also talk about how PUBG: New State opens new opportunities for gaming-focussed mobile devices in the market.

You can listen to all this and more in our nearly 30 minutes long conversation by hitting the play button on the Spotify player embedded above.

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