PUBG: New State | Drone, Cars, Guns... 8 Things Of Note In The New PUBG Game!

What is special about PUBG: New State? Does it represent a whole new world for PUBG, or is it the same old gaming wine in a new graphics bottle?

By Akriti Rana and Nimish Dubey

There is a new PUBG game in town. And this one is available in India. We are talking of PUBG: New State, which officially arrived a few days ago and has already run up millions of downloads.

But what is special about PUBG: New State? Does it represent a whole new world for PUBG, or is it the same old gaming wine in a new graphics bottle?  We have been playing the game for a while on a number of devices and here are eight things about PUBG: New State that we think are worth noting.

Basically The Same Game... 

Let's get this straight. PUBG has not changed fundamentally. The gameplay is still the same and the theme is also the same. You are dropped onto an island and you have to search for weapons and equipment and vehicles and well, take down everyone else.

You can play solo, alongside a friend, or join a team of up to four members. The aim remains to outlast everyone else and be the last man or team left. And yes, the prize remains a chicken dinner.

The gameplay also fundamentally remains the same, with one button for moving and another for looking around, with dedicated buttons for fighting and picking up objects and the like.

There are some subtle changes in what you can do in the game, but in essence, if you have played PUBG or Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), you will be able to hit the ground running here and can skip the training. This is fundamentally the same game. This will disappoint those who expected perhaps more character building (RPG style) or perhaps a greater element of storytelling, but hardcore fans will be right at home here.

Oh, and it still remains totally free to download and play, although there are lots of in-app purchases. 

...But In A Different Time, At A Different Place 

The basic objective and gameplay of New State might be the same as BGMI and PUBG but that does not mean that everything is the same. You get a new island to compete on, or a "new map" as the players like to say. It is called TROI and it comes from the future - PUBG: New State is based in 2051.

TROI is supposed to be somewhere in the United States and as per the description, is futuristic. There are also new weapons and vehicles. Truth be told, we did not find it crazy futuristic, although the option to customize weapons (you can change barrels, add scopes and even make weapons automatic in some cases) is super cool. 

But yes, there is more space to run around and explore, and yet more places and objects to hide in or behind, or even blow up and destroy, depending on your inclination (there is even a city called "Graveyard"!). If you want something more classic, there's good news - the Erangel map from PUBG is available, although it has been rebranded as Erangel 2051.

All said and done, graphics look better and a little more detailed.  It is not on par with Call of Duty yet in the graphics department, but then the action is every bit as hectic.

Cars Just Got Extra Useful (And Not Just Because They Run On Electricity)...

With New State being based in the future, you do end up with a lot of new vehicles. And in a very nice touch, many of them run on electricity (yay for the environment). Of course, this does mean that the normal gas packs will not work for them, and you will have to keep scouting for battery packs. It also means that they lose power more rapidly in magnetic areas (blue zones), so remember to be well-stocked, when battling out there. There is also the option to stop the engine on your car, to save fuel. 

There is more to cars than just driving them around, though. In PUBG: New State, cars have graduated from being transporters to actual objects of battle. You can now open the door of a car, and use it as cover from attacks - there is a "door" button in the car menu.

Interestingly, while the door itself breaks after a while, the car does not get damaged! It is not just the door that can be opened. In one of the most significant additions to the game, users can now store weapons and loot in the trunks of their vehicles. This adds a whole new dimension to the game, as you now are not restricted to what you can keep in your bag, but can also carry stack up stuff in the trunk of your vehicle (different cars have different capacities).

A point to keep in mind is that if you lose the vehicle, you lose whatever you stashed inside it as well. Also, only cars can store stuff. Bikes cannot!

...But Trams Are The Best To Travel In

Does PUBG: New State have some sort of eco-friendly message hidden in it? We suspect so.

Apart from the electronic vehicles and the option to switch off engines to save fuel, the game also comes with trams. You can hop into a tram and take a trip to another part of the map. All hail public transport. Not just because it gets you places, but because the tram is basically bulletproof. So you cannot really die when you are inside a tram — which makes them perfect for not just getting around TROI but also for taking a breather or getting a spot of healing or just taking out the competition.

Alas, the trams only cover a small portion of the game map (might change with updates), so you cannot just hop into one whenever and wherever you wish. Still, whenever possible, stay within range of one, especially if you are expecting heavy fire. They are literally life-savers.

The Gun That Gives Life, Rather Than Takes It!

There are plenty of guns out there in New State - hey, PUBG is at the end of the day, a shoot 'em up party. And as we pointed out earlier, there are plenty of options to customise them as well. But if you ask us for the best gun of them all, we would pick a gun that gives life rather than takes it.

We are referring to the green flare gun. Fire it in the air and you can revive a dead teammate. Yes, it literally does that - your teammate will come back to life and be dropped back using a special aircraft.

Just remember to do use this gun when your teammate has been dead for at least 90 seconds or else it does not work. The revived player also comes with no gear, so be ready to equip them after you revive them.

Also, remember that this is a flare gun, so when you fire it into the sky, your opponents will see it too and will be aware of what you have done, as well as realise that you have one team member who has very little gear. The green flare gun is not easy to find and costs a fair bit, but it literally lets you play God!

Drone Delivery (Get Inspired, Amazon And Flipkart)

One futuristic touch we really loved in PUBG: New State is the always accessible Drone Store. It is basically a store you can access at any time. And your purchases are delivered to you by, you guessed it, a drone.

You literally can place orders in the thick of the action (there is a Drone Shop link in the mini map), and get weapons and gear delivered to you. Now, that is e-commerce at its finest — the ability to order from anywhere and get quick and speedy delivery.

That said, the drone courier can be seen by your opponents and can be destroyed and looted as well, so we would give you the same advice that folks give when you are about to binge shopping on Amazon on Flipkart — pause and think before you order!

Works On Many Phones, But Is Best On High-End Phones 

These improved graphics and more detailed maps mean that PUBG: New State requires a fair bit of power and storage (it is more than a 1 GB download) to run at its best.

Now, we need to point out that it is not as if the game will not run on more affordable devices — even devices with Snapdragon 662 and Dimensity 700 chips were able to run the game. However, if you really want the game in all its glory, we would advise playing it on a phone with a Snapdragon 8 series chip (actually even last year's 865 plays it very well), a Dimensity 1200, or the Bionic A 14/15 processors on the iPhones.

Basically, if you have a flagship purchased over the last 15-20 months, it will handle this game just fine.

Mid-segment chips like the Snapdragon 765 and 732 as well as the Dimensity 800 also can play the game very well, provided you are willing to turn down the settings.

Most phones priced above Rs 10,000 should be able to play the game with a few graphic setting tweaks, although performance on high-end flagships is clearly superior. 

Buggy...But The Bugs Are Getting Fixed 

There is a joke that goes "How do you know that PUBG: New State was developed during a pandemic? Because it is full of bugs". That might be a little extreme, but the fact is that the game has so far had more than its share of issues and bugs, ranging from random crashes and game freezes to graphic oddities to most shockingly, some Android device owners claiming that the game had bricked their devices (techspeak for rendering them unusable).

To its credit, Krafton (the developer of the game) claims to have fixed most of these bugs and is still fixing them even as this is being written.

Yes, you will be often advised to update the game and face the odd server shutdown for a maintenance issue, but you can be reasonably sure that bugs will be fixed by updates.

Incidentally, some of those updates might even bring new features to the game — give us greater tram coverage, we say!

You can download PUBG: New State for Android from Google Play and for iPhone and iPad from the App Store.

Watch a trailer of the game here.