What’s in PUBG Mobile 1.0?

[i]There's more than just a fancy new (old) map.

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As we’re all likely aware of by now, the main allure of this update is the release of the long awaited Erangel 2.0: a well-deserved new coat of paint for the map that put the game on… well, the map. We’ll have a graphical comparison up closer to the full launch, but there’s more to this grandiose update than just how the map looks on your screen.

90 FPS Mode – PUBG Mobile 1.0 FeaturesFor some (like myself) the addition of a 90 FPS toggle in PUBG Mobile is a bigger deal than Erangel 2.0 itself. It’s something that stretches beyond a single map or game mode. As we’ve outlined in our performance guides before, the game’s smoothness setting is what caps frame rates at 20, 25, 30, 40, and 60 — limiting the strain on copious different devices that we all use to run the game.

With the PUBG Mobile 1.0 update, we’ll finally be able to push this to 90 frames on supported devices, bringing a similar smoothness to the game that esports professionals on PC enjoy in PUBG and Counter-Strike. It’s still not quite as high as gaming phones like the Asus ROG Phone III can technically handle, with its 144Hz screen, but it’ll finally lend credence to the devices from a few years back that used their 90Hz displays as marketing hooks long before mobile games were able to take advantage of it.

Throughout the 1.0 beta, 90 FPS mode has been locked to the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 8 line of devices in some sort of exclusivity deal. Following the public release of 1.0, however, that exclusively opens up, offering players with 90Hz-capable devices to toggle on the feature for themselves. Despite the original announcement coming from Qualcomm itself, as it announced the Snapdragon 865 mobile chip, the fact the OnePlus 7 used in the exclusivity period runs the Snapdragon 855 chip from late 2018 should mean most devices with a 90Hz or higher display will be able to toggle without too much trouble.

 

Keeping a stable frame rate that high will take some power. However, we recently summarized some of the better PUBG Mobile devices out there for a wide range of budgets. Some of which should have no problem pulling off 90Hz when it comes.

Technology Upgrades – PUBG Mobile 1.0 Features

The official update announcement includes an infographic that, at a glance, claims an average 20 percent FPS increase across medium/low-end devices with 1.0. But there isn’t some magic fix on its way. Look at a little closer and it’s more of a pat on the back — ne that insinuates PUBG Mobile has achieved that average level of improvement since the 0.10 update long, long ago.

But new graphical optimizations are on the way with next month’s big update. Lighting, particle, and smoke effects are all getting tweaked, alongside others like air blasts and muzzle flashes. Scope interaction is being tweaked to “make every shot more realistic,” while texture updates should mean character models, key environments, and things like the sky and sea look fancier across the board following the patch. There’s also talk of condensing and otherwise refining the UI.

Foundations for the Future of the Game

With those three talking points alone, expect a very different lobby when you log in on Sept. 8. PUBG Mobile 1.0 is, again, more than just a signature map update. We’ve had plenty of those in the run-up to this. Many of the back end changes should not only help it feel like a more polished product than it has over the last couple of years, but should lay the foundations for many more updates to come.

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