Recent reviews by The Hu

TLDR: PUBG has an anticheat software that often produces false positives that result in erroneous bans, and no way to reasonably appeal these bans. At best you would perpetually live in fear of minor disruptions, at worst a random permanent ban could completely devalue your purchase and the time/resources sunk into the game. In a saturated battle royale market full of free and high quality alternatives, why bother dealing with this one?


I bought this game while it was still in beta and recently reinstalled to play with a couple of friends. One of my friends was on console and I didn't realize at the time that crossplay between console and PC was not supported. After launching the game for 15 minutes, we decided to play something else. Would've had a neutral experience if this anecdote ended there (it was my bad for not knowing the supported features).

The day after I received a notice that I was permanently banned from the game, without having played a single match (you can look at my steam achievements for proof, I haven't jumped out of the plane a single time because I only played before there were achievements). PUBG uses an anticheat software called Battleye to scan your PC while the game is launched, so you can get banned for not playing the game. Additionally, If you look on the PUBG official forum on reddit, you'll realize that false positives are surprisingly common with their anticheat software (there are many posts about users getting banned then subsequently unbanned after a manual review, which may take from a couple of days to several months after to possibly never).

When I submitted an appeal, I received several automated responses simply quoting the code of conduct and telling me that further replies to their email would count as abuse to their support system (if you want to get an idea, here is a reddit thread with almost the same exact responses I received, word for word: https://www.reddit.com/r/PUBATTLEGROUNDS/comments/ams6am/permanently_game_banned_for_no_reason/).

So basically, after receiving an unjust permanent ban for not even playing the game and having no reasonable avenue for appealing this ban, I cannot recommend it. This is not even talking about the game itself, just the support structure surrounding it.

From a gameplay perspective, I would not know its current state as I didn't play a single game. Three years ago, the battle royale genre was new and this was the game to play. But now, with Fortnite, Warzone, Apex (and probably more I can't name off the top of my head) all being not only high quality alternatives but also free, it's hard to justify an initial purchase of $30 to play the game. One thing I have heard that this game is ripe with cheaters and bots. This would probably explain why their anticheat is so aggressive, but they need to pair this with an accommodating support system in order to properly benefit their players.

This ban isn't the worst thing in the world for me, it is but a scarlet letter on my steam profile. But if you were planning to invest $30 and your time/additional money for cosmetics to play this game, I would look elsewhere.

I hope to update this review if I (ever) get unbanned