PUBG, or PlayerUnknown’s Battleground, is undoubtedly the most popular mobile game of our times and millions were left devastated following its ban on 4 September. Many called it the Black September when the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) banned 117 Chinese apps, along with PUBG Mobile.
Before its ban, the game was downloaded more than 200 million times in India, and PUBG Mobile players were hoping that it would not be banned in India, citing its origin is not Chinese but South Korean.
Unfortunately, unlike PUBG PC, the majority of stakes for PUBG Mobile are in the hands of Chinese app giant Tencent Games. Thus, making it inevitable to be disallowed by the Government of India, due to Tencent Games’ data handling credibility issues and servers being based out of China.
An official statement said that the government blocked the mobile apps it considered “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, Defence of India, Security of State, and Public Order.”
PUBG Likely to Return in a New Avatar
But the good news is that the official PUBG mobile will be back in India soon and in a ‘Made for India’ avatar. For now, there have been a lot of rumours, confusion and fake news surrounding the official comeback of PUBG Mobile in India.
Last week, a 'Download' option appeared for Google Play Store briefly on the PUBG's official website. Though, it seems that it was just a test page with the ‘Download’ button as a placeholder, for now.
In fact, an unknown source started a pre-registration page on TapTap platform, which garnered around 250,000 registrations before it was taken down. And still no one knows anything about how that happened and who did it? Now that is taking PlayersUnknown Battleground in the literal sense.
Leaving the rumour mill behind, the only credible information till now is the official statement from PUBG Corporation that they are coming back very soon in an all-new avatar for India. There hasn’t been any other information apart from that – no launch date and no links to download.
Yes, there will be a lot of changes to the game both under the hood and visually in the gameplay. But as most of the changes will be in terms of data localisation and data storage, they will be more than what meets the eye when you first play the game again.
The most critical update to the game will be the change of ownership from Tencent Mobile and moving all the data from China to Indian servers.
To achieve that, a collective of independent game development team, KRAFTON, has tied up with Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing service platform. This partnership will ensure that the performance of the game servers are optimal, and more importantly, players’ data is secure in India.
What To Expect in the New Game
Now, let us visit some of the visual changes that we might see in the upcoming reincarnation of PUBG Mobile for India as per the press release shared by PUBG Corporation:
1) Keeping the Indian values in mind the game will start with clothed players instead of them in their undergarments searching for clothes during the gameplay.
2) To make the game less violent or gory, the hit effects will be in green colour instead of red, and there will be no option to change it.
3) The new gameplay will be set in a virtual simulation training ground.
4) Last and the most important visual change will be the restrictions to promote healthy gameplay habits, especially for younger players. After a certain time, the game will automatically stop and will urge the players to take a break before they can play again. This feature though already available in the international version, it is expected to be a lot stricter in the Indian version.
As of today, PUBG Corporation has not announced any launch date for PUBG Mobile in India. But we speculate that the game could launch in the country very soon, considering the test page was live a few days ago.
And the partnership with the Microsoft Azure platform in a way confirms that user data is now in safe hands and is in India. Maybe the only thing left is a go ahead from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology before we have PUBG Mobile back on the Android Play Store and the Apple App Store in India.
So, do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below on the return of PUBG Mobile in India.
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