PUBG Lite
Two years ago, the publisher Krafton released a Free2Play version of the popular battle royale shooter Playerunknown's Battleground s.The goal of PUBG Lite - the name of this variant - was to make the action game in a slightly slimmed-down version even on PCs with slightly weaker hardware run and in this way reach a wider target audience. Unfortunately, that will soon be over, because the end of the Free2Play title has already been sealed.As Krafton announced on the official website, PUBG is over (buy now € 17.75 ) Lite planned for April 29, 2021. However, the team fails to provide a more detailed explanation for this decision. The statement reads:
"We are deeply grateful for the passion and support of the numerous PUBG Lite fans who have accompanied us. We hope that PUBG Lite will be our fans during the busy time in the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a fun way to stay safe. Unfortunately, after much deliberation, we made the difficult decision to end the service. The time has come for our journey to end. We regret to inform you need to have the service for PUBG Lite cease on April 29, 2921. "
There is therefore a lot of room for speculation as to what ultimately led to this decision. From a purely financial point of view, it may no longer be worthwhile for Krafton to continue to maintain the service for PUBG Lite. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Krafton
PUBG Lite will shut down in late April despite going fully free-to-play
Credit: Krafton
You’ll soon have one less way to play PUBG. As The Verge notes, Krafton has announced that it will shut down PUBG Lite on April 29. The developer has already halted new downloads for the PC-based battle royale title, and the official website is effectively closed. Player support will end on May 29.
The decision to shut down Lite doesn’t affect PUBG Mobile Lite, the phone-oriented equivalent — that game remains intact.
Related: The best battle royale games like PUBG Mobile or Fortnite on Android
Krafton didn’t say why it was going to shut down PUBG Lite. There were signs of trouble months earlier, however. The studio made the game completely free-to-play in November 2020, pulling the title’s in-game L-Coin currency. It had only been available since a beta released in January 2019, and updates stopped in early 2020.
If demand was to blame, it wouldn’t be completely surprising. While there aren’t readily available player statistics, it’s no secret that there wasn’t a huge audience — people were asking about a lack of human players in 2019. Lite was built to make the PUBG experience accessible to people whose modest computers might struggle with the regular game, but the shut down suggests many PC players were content to use the “full” game instead.
PUBG Mobile Lite should have a safer future. It’s designed to make PUBG Mobile viable on lower-end Android phones, and it has over 100 million installs as of this writing. Even though some of those are likely to be repeats, the downloads suggest there’s a more compelling case for courting budget smartphone owners than there is for entry-level PCs.