PUBG: New State launched in India; here’s your 10-point guide to playing Krafton’s new battle royale game

PUBG: New State officially arrives on Android and iOS today. Krafton is launching the battle royale game simultaneously in over 200 countries—including in India—amid unprecedented hype and fanfare. The excitement has been so palpable that its servers could not even handle the surge in the beginning leading to a delayed launch.

New State was supposed to be playable from 9:30am in India but while some users were able to get access, many couldn’t. Krafton confirmed the technical snag soon after and said, the game would launch two hours later—that is, at 11:30am. Luckily, the game was ready-to-play this time, though Krafton must be keeping its fingers crossed. It has also released a few to-dos for players who may be experiencing any issues with the game after launch.

Now that it’s here, we’re sure you must have questions—and we’re here to answer them for you. Here’s your 10-point guide to playing PUBG: New State.

1. Let’s start with the basics. What is PUBG: New State? It’s an all-new battle royale game from the house of South Korean company Krafton—which is the publisher—developed by PUBG Studios. The thing to really note here is that New State is made by the same team that created the original PUBG: Battlegrounds for PC and consoles. Needless to say, New State is being touted as the “most realistic and technologically advanced mobile game to date” with a lot of the in-game elements seemingly “on par” with the PC version of Battlegrounds.
2. PUBG: New State is set in 2051 and takes place in the same world as PUBG: Battlegrounds. Think of it as a sequel of sorts to Battlegrounds. It will have four “unique” maps. The popular Erangel map slash setting makes a return though it’s been updated with “futuristic twists.” New State will also set the stage for an all-new Troi battleground that’s said to be set in the future.
3. A couple of highlights that Krafton is really highlighting big time are advanced gunplay and mechanics all paired with realistic graphics. Some of the in-game features include “weapon customisation, drone store, green flare gun and a recruitment system where you can recruit enemies to your squad.”
4. Krafton has previously announced that the makers will roll out “a strong and consistent pipeline of new content, global service support and anti-cheat measures,” for New State post launch.
5. As part of its anti-cheat measures, Krafton will ban the use of “unauthorised program, emulators, keyboard, and mouse, and actively detect and restrict hacks to prevent cheating and protect the game’s code.” The company has also promised that it will closely review player sentiment and feedback and bring in-game updates accordingly.
6. So, that was a brief about PUBG: New State. Now, where and how to play the game? Well, New State was supposed to go live on Android and iOS at the same time but the launch has been far from perfect. The Android version arrived two hours late. On iOS, it took another extra hour before it was playable. At the time of filing this guide, the game is available and ready-to-play on both Android and iOS. You can download it from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store depending on the phone/tablet you have.
7. On iOS, PUBG: New State weighs in at 1.5GB. On Android, it is 1.39GB.
8. PUBG: New State is a graphically demanding game and therefore, it is tailored to work best on some minimum system requirements. On Android, you’ll need a device with a 64-bit CPU (ABI arm64 or higher), 2GB or more RAM, Android 6.0 or higher, and Open GL 3.1 or higher / Vulkan 1.1 or higher. New State will work on any iPhone and iPad running iOS 13 or later. It is recommended that players use iPhone 6s and newer models for playing the game for a good experience,
9. In case you’re encountering any issues while playing, Krafton advises that you should update the software and restart the app, change the Graphics API setting to OpenGL ES, and disable USB Debugging and Developer Options on your device.
10. There is a lot of hype and excitement around PUBG: New State. The game recorded over 5 crore pre-registrations since it was first announced in February. Now that’s here, hopefully, it will live up to its hype.