PUBG: Blindspot is a cheeky little PUBG: Battlegrounds spin off that’s currently in development, and was playable on the show floor at IGN Live. It’s a 5v5 top-down tactical shooter that has a classic team deathmatch mode – one we got hooked on even in the chaos of the gaming show floor – and a Demolition mode, that will see teams using traps and obstacles to outwit the enemy. It’s been compared to a top-down Rainbow Six Siege and with good reason: to rack up the kills you’re going to need to use your brain as well as your trigger finger.
1. Think ‘Peekaboo with bullets’
Forget all your FPS muscle memory, this is a top-down strategic PvP game where your cunning is as important as your reaction times. You’re dropped into a map full of corners, windows, doorways – basically anything you can think of to make line of sight a key part of gameplay – and you have to hunt down your opponents before they pop one in your back. You can see the whole map, but you’ll only see enemies if they’re in your cone of vision or your teammates, which sounds simple until someone snipes you through a window while you’re focused on the doorway at the end of a corridor.
2. Demolition Mode is on the way
While we didn’t get to play the Demolition Mode, it sounds like a step up in complexity from the 5v5 deathmatch, adding a greater need for planning and teamwork. Production Director Seungmyeong Yang explained more about it at IGN Live. “Demolition Mode can commonly be found in other games such as Counter Strike or Valorant,” he said. “In this Demolition Mode there is an attacking team and a defending team, and the defense team basically tries to block the attacking team from coming in and the attacking team tries to breach the building. It was really fun to see how the gamers react, they seem to really enjoy the game!” Demolition Mode is the inspiration for those Rainbow Six Siege comparisons, albeit it from a whole new top-down perspective.
3. Start your WASD warmups
The keyboard and mouse controls are more like a twin-stick shooter set up, and it’s going to take your brain a second to catch up to how they work. You control movement with WASD and your cone of vision with the mouse, while to aim and fire weapons you hold down the right mouse button. That will slow your movement, though, so it’s always a balance between moving quickly to avoid enemy detection and choosing when to take your shots. Once you’ve mastered that you can focus on being more accurate, using the mouse wheel and keyboard to go for head shots, body shots, or aiming specifically at any crouched enemies.
4. Character choice is key
Like any team game, who you have in your five-person kill crew is going to matter. The build I played had 10 characters to choose from, each with pleasingly distinct looks and loadouts to keep things interesting. I’m not exactly a subtle operative, so I gravitated towards those with weapons that could cause carnage up close and personal, like bearded cowboy Collision, who packs a Winchester 1300 shotgun and booby traps; or Kayak, who has a semi-automatic O12 combat shotgun and a remote sticky bomb. Support players can go for Fanatic with her P90 and First Aid Kid, or sniper Buddy with her scanning drones. Some you might want to play just because of their character designs – I’m not usually one for Toxic Gas Grenades, but Dropdown has a sort of Dystopian Harley Quinn vibe that’s hard to resist.
5. You can play it in August
There’s no official release date for the full game, but there is a PC beta planned for August. Keep an eye on the game’s official Steam page for updates.
Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to going time blind and staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.
