Talking Update 4.3 with PUBG Studio Director Brian Corrigan

Alongside a new weapon and adjustments to gameplay, Update 4.3 introduced many new and exciting features to PUBG players.

PUBG revealed the next installment of player progression to coincide with Weapon Mastery, which made its debut back in April. With combat-focused progression already in place, Update 4.3 introduces an all-new Survival Mastery system for the other half of the game, surviving.

At its core, the new Survival Mastery system rewards players for performing a variety of actions over the course of a match. Actions such as looting, reviving a downed teammate and surviving blue zone phases will contribute to a player’s XP and overall level. As players progress, they’ll be rewarded with items used to customize their PUBGID, another new feature introduced this update.

PUBGID promotes player customization by allowing the player to create their own unique ID card with a variety of icons, backdrops, and player poses. As you level up within the Survival Mastery system, you’ll unlock new pieces to be used on our ID. This isn’t something many would have expected from PUBG in this update, but it’s been well received and creates a much more unique experience when reviewing your mastery system progress.

Another new and interesting feature implemented with this update is the player trait system. Characterizing multiple aspects of your gameplay, the player trait system will help paint a broad picture of your playstyle and compare it to the community average. For example, are you someone who likes to hot drop? Or do you prefer to land and loot in peace? This is just one of the categories the system can analyze as you land, loot, and repeat. Once you complete ten matches, the system will display your three most prominent traits, quickly giving you an idea of your own playstyle.

In addition to the Survival Mastery, player traits, and the PUBGID feature; Update 4.3 delivers a new weapon to be used across the battlegrounds, although this isn’t a weapon many would have predicted to be the next addition to PUBG. The “DBS” is a double-barrel shotgun currently limited to Care Packages, but will hopefully soon be spawned throughout each map to replace any of the shotguns currently in-game. Capable of holding fourteen rounds of 12-gauge ammunition, the DBS can deal plenty of damage very quickly.

Considering all of the information and adjustments unveiled in this update, I enlisted the help of the PUBG Studio Director, Brian Corrigan. He was kind enough to elaborate on these newly introduced features and point out the most exciting aspects of Update 4.3.

App Trigger: For context, could you explain your role as the Studio Director at PUBG?

Brian Corrigan: PUBG has different teams around the world. At the moment I’m responsible for the engineers, designers, and producers who work on many of our backend services, most notably Mastery and Competitive Rank.

AP: Weapon progression introduced players to PUBG Mastery, how does Survival Mastery build on that system? And how will the two work in unison?

BC: Weapon Mastery focuses on a player’s ability to be effective with different weapons. As you know, our gunplay systems are one of the best systems in the game. However, Weapon Skills are only one of the many types of skills required to master PUBG. From the beginning, we envisioned Survival Mastery as a complement to Weapon Mastery.

Survival Mastery builds on Weapon Mastery by tracking the other actions players take to survive, as well as when they take them. It gives players credit for taking certain actions at certain times and successfully surviving different high-tension engagements. Ultimately, we hope it’s a tool that players can use to up their game, as well as a way for players to talk about their unique approach to the game.

AP: With 500 levels to climb within the Survival Mastery system, what actions should players expect to progress their level?

BC: The Survival Mastery System analyzes the critical decisions you make during a match and it will reward you for those that lead to your continued survival. Actions, like finding and equipping armor, using a med-kit at the right time, vehicle usage, and surviving through each blue-zone phase, are just a few of the actions the system uses to determine how effective each player is at progressing to the end game.

AP: As players level up, what can they look forward to unlocking during their progression?

BC: Survival Mastery introduces a new rewards system called PUBGID. Previously, other than just skins and player customization, there hasn’t really been an official way for players to show off their skills or their personal approach to the game. The PUBGID works like a passport that players can customize based on items earned within the Survival Mastery system. This system will be more prominent in the future and will offer additional customization options as it evolves over time. We’re really interested to hear feedback and ideas from our players. We’ve already received quite a bit!

AP: Players will have a new way to track their playstyle with an all-new trait system. What could players learn using this system and the traits attributed to them?

BC: The trait system is pretty interesting. As a player, it helps me understand the way other players in my squad or duo pair, or how other players I meet on the battlegrounds approach the game. We continuously analyze each player’s actions in order to understand their approach. We also track how their approach evolves and changes over time.
As a designer, it helps us understand different play styles in order to continue to evolve and expand the game.

AP: PUBGID will debut alongside the Survival Mastery, could you elaborate on how players will use their PUBGID and what they’ll be able to customize?

BC: The PUBGID shows your in-game character, in a scene, surrounded by information that makes your player unique. Many of these pieces can be customized based on the rewards you earn within the Mastery system with more customization options like the ability to choose your favorite stats coming soon in future updates.

AP: The “Last Match” tab received a significant overhaul too, how will the updates to this tab and the new Survival Mastery system be used together?

BC: Yes, and there’s still a lot more to do. This is an area where we’ll devote more time in the future. For this release, we added a new Survival timeline that allows you to walk through, step by step, the decisions you made that ultimately resulted in your death (or a chicken!). We’re also showing you some information for the first time about some of the other players you encountered on the Battlegrounds.

AP: Is there anything else you would like to share with the players who are looking forward to this update?

BC: The entire Mastery system is under constant development, and we have a lot of plans for the future. However, like everything we do, we want to hear from everyone about what they like and what they don’t. Please share feedback on your favorite social network and tag our community managers. They share it with us every day. See you on the Battlegrounds!