PUBG addresses lag and rubber-banding in first patch since full release

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' transition to version 1.0, marking its exit from Early Access, added a fair chunk of content. You can now run around the new desert map, Miramar, shoot new weapons, drive different vehicles and experiment with the climbing system. All good stuff. But unfortunately, some players have had their fun ruined by performance issues, with servers plagued by lag and rubber-banding.

The development team discussed those issues in a blog post yesterday, and rolled out a patch—the first since version 1.0 released—to try and address the problems. Lag and rubber-banding (or "character position readjustment issues", if you prefer), were caused partly by the addition of the new content, as well as an upgrade to the game engine that rolled out alongside it, the team explained.

To fix the problems, they have "removed some inefficiencies in server infrastructure and optimized in-game servers". Specifically, they reduced "the bottleneck during the game server launch phase and also resolved some server hitch issues". The upshot is that you should have less lag next time you log on.

But it doesn't sound like the team are confident the problem has completely gone away. Indeed, they are trying to come up with new ways to address the issue on a daily basis. "After today’s update, we will be running some internal tests and deploying more updates to gradually mitigate the problem," they said.

"We are currently examining several measures including server optimization and server logic modification to address the multitude of causes. On top of this, we will continue our efforts to further investigate remaining causes."

The patch has also addressed a few game bugs, the largest of which was giving players a disproportionately higher chance of landing on a Miramar server over one running the game's original map, Erangel. I can't say many people were complaining (it's new, after all), but the chances are now 50/50.

Click here for the full patch notes.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.