Climbing and Vaulting Are Coming to 'Battlegrounds'

There are many, many times when I am stuck in a horrible situation in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. The game is almost a deep meditation on that idea: What will rescue you when you're backed into the corner? Up until today, the answer was your guns and your wits. With the release of a new trailer at the PC Gaming Show today at E3, the mysterious PlayerUnknown revealed that PUBG is going to add climbing and vaulting.

Need to get a good vantage on someone? Climb on top of a wall. Need to escape danger? Climb over that wall. Want to stand on top of a car while screaming and firing your SCAR wildly into air? Buddy, now you can fulfill your wildest fantasies. PUBG is a game of tactical intrigue and panic, and adding new ways of traversing the world is something that will make those tactics and that panic even more riveting than it already is.

While I am unbelievably excited about the ability to climb and move a little more smoothly in the often-clunky world of murder that PUBG provides, I am also equally intrigued by the new, more dynamic weather that appeared in the trailer that the developer showed. Playing a PUBG in the rain is a different experience than the "normal" game, and the fact that the development team is taking that idea and running with it by introducing new weather like fog and different times of day like sunset means that each session of the game is going to start being very different.

When I watch Crowbar and Sickle mixing it up in the hyperviolent world of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, I often think about how much better it might be if they couldn't see anything due to the sun shining directly in their eyes. I yearn to hear Patrick yelling "I CAN'T SEE!" as he drives a buggy into a dense fog bank. Very soon we're going to see the great moment when Austin throws up his hands in disgust after being flanked as he says, simply, "I climbed over the wall."

I'm very excited for new and interesting ways to mix it up in the Battlegrounds, and it seems like the development team wants to see that happen. Now let's see how it happens in execution.