PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, took the stage at Paris Games Week to reveal what many Xbox One owners have been wondering since E3: When will Buy Now land on Microsoft’s console? The answer to that question, according to Greene, the game’s lead designer, is December 12 through the Xbox Game Preview program — the equivalent of early access titles on Steam.
Known as PUGB, the wildly popular battle royale game, which drops 100 players on a map in a fight to be the lone survivor, was announced for Xbox One at E3. The game became a runaway hit instantly following its March launch on PC as an early access Steam game. In seven months, it has sold more than 13 million copies and currently stands as the most-played game on Steam.
The decision to bring PUBG to Xbox was helped by the Xbox Preview program, which allows unfinished games to be played on the console — no program of that sort exists on PlayStation 4 at this time. PUBG will still have the same premise on Xbox One, but Bluehole said that due to its “community-driven focus,” it won’t be exactly the same experience on Xbox One. It will, however, cost $30, just like the PC version.
Bluehole Studio also announced that it worked with Xbox to produce three unique, limited-edition cosmetic packs exclusively for Xbox. The packs — Warrior (shown above), Accessory, and Tracksuit — will be available as stand-alone purchases when the game debuts on Xbox One in December. While pricing isn’t yet known, you’ll want to act fast since they will only be available for a limited time. Bluehole said these three add-ons will be the only items available for purchase on Xbox One while the game is in the preview program.
Along with the Xbox One launch date reveal, version 1.0 of PUBG for PC is expected to arrive in late December. That means that the shooter could exit early access by the end of the year and become a “finished” product.
Bluehole has been developing both versions of the game in tandem, but each version has its own unique challenges. Even though the PC version is planned to enter version 1.0 shortly after the game launches for Xbox Preview, Bluehole wants “to have both versions align to each other as soon as possible.”
