This legendary PUBG crossbow shot may never be topped

On the outskirts of Pochinki, a PUBG Robin Hood was born.

With 87 left alive, Ianrosetta finds himself with a lousy starting weapon in his hands: a crossbow—widely considered the least-effective and hardest-to-use thanks to its enormous range drop-off and slow-as-hell manual reload. Mounted on top: the 4X scope.

Ian hears a Dacia to the south, less than 100 meters away. What does he have to lose? He tracks the Soviet sedan left to right across the screen, keeping his ACOG scope flat. Adjusting for distance, he climbs the crosshairs a few degrees, pauses a half-second, and looses his arrow.

Other than the flit of the bow, the only sound Ian hears is the dampening engine noise of the car, its RPMs decreasing as its deceased driver has taken his foot off the gas.

I'd like to imagine at this point that all other players, cosmically aware of what had transpired, simultaneously put down their arms and walked calmly into the sea.

Here's what's nuts to me about this shot:

  • Zero hesitation. The moment he makes visual contact, he's instantly compensating for the car's lateral speed.
  • There's one only player in the car.
  • The car changes its angle at the last moment.
  • Assuming the enemy was at full health and had at least level 1 armor, a headshot was the only one-hit-kill scenario
  • The Dacia is the fastest non-motorbike in PUBG, topping out at 115 km/hr.
  • Yo, no part of car is visible when he pulls the trigger. It's a blind shot based on intuition and incomprehensible brain geometry. 

PUBG's a petri dish for insane, long-range snipes and physically impossible vehicle murder, but this crossbow hail-mary probably won't be topped. I've paired the gif with Eminem's "Lose Yourself," creating the canonical way of experiencing this highlight.

Below, another neat frag from player Vault40, who manages a rare air kill on three bullets, a minute or two into the match. 

Evan Lahti
Global Editor-in-Chief

Evan's a hardcore FPS enthusiast who joined PC Gamer in 2008. After an era spent publishing reviews, news, and cover features, he now oversees editorial operations for PC Gamer worldwide, including setting policy, training, and editing stories written by the wider team. His most-played FPSes are CS:GO, Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress Classic, Rainbow Six Siege, and Arma 2. His first multiplayer FPS was Quake 2, played on serial LAN in his uncle's basement, the ideal conditions for instilling a lifelong fondness for fragging. Evan also leads production of the PC Gaming Show, the annual E3 showcase event dedicated to PC gaming.