Your experience in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds may improve soon.
Bluehole announced today in a post on Twitter that the studio is making some adjustments to its servers in an effort to reduce the lag that a significant number of Battlegrounds players are encountering during matches. Battlegrounds is an online multiplayer shooter where 100 people jump onto an island and try to kill each other until only one player is left. But the game’s lag has made Battlegrounds much tougher than it should be to aim, open up menus, and pick up items. Bluehole is dedicated to addressing the situation even though Battlegrounds is in the Early Access portal on Steam for unfinished games where players expect disruptive problems.
But while a server-side update should improve the situation, Bluehole is also warning players that issues will likely continue at least until next month.
We're making some changes to the servers to try to resolve part of the lag you are experiencing. However, this will not fully fix the issue.
— PLAY BATTLEGROUNDS (@PUBATTLEGROUNDS) May 26, 2017
Even if this won’t magically correct the issues with Battlegrounds, it is nice to hear the developer acknowledge it is taking it seriously. The company reiterated that it is dedicating the next few weeks to sorting out the shoddy connection.
“We will be spending the next month focused on server performance, and you should see a bigger improvement with our June update,” reads another message from the company on social media. “We ask that you please bear with us while we tackle this issue, and thank you for your patience so far.”
Bluehole just launched its big May update on Thursday. That patch, which is part of the studio’s plans to roll out a major collection of new content and fixes on a monthly schedule, introduced a new sniper rifle, a motorbike, and a number of performance improvements.
Since the update, I’ve found that Battlegrounds runs smoother, but the lag is as bad as ever. Anecdotally, I have had a lot of matches with severe lag that causes my character to bounce around wildly. That makes walking through a door one of the most challenging feats in Battlegrounds because the server thinks I keep walking past it. But it seems like the lag is getting worse only because I am hearing more players complain about it.
Even if the reality is different than my own experience, the Battlegrounds servers and connection protocols are jacked up enough that Bluehole feels the need to address it on Twitter and to spend the next month trying to fix it. I hope the team succeeds — if only so I don’t have to cuss out another door frame.
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