PUBG: Blindspot will be putting a whole new spin on the franchise. In particular, Blindspot will be grafting hero shooter elements onto the PUBG IP, throwing itself headfirst into a competitive Thunderdome.
Krafton’s Project ARC recently returned in the form of PUBG: BLINDSPOT, an upcoming top-down, tactical shooter. The game, which now has a publicly available demo following February’s Steam Next Fest, will take the franchise in a new direction, focusing on 5v5 matches with hero shooter classes. Game Rant recently spoke with Blindspot production director Seungmyeong Yang, who went into detail about why the latest entry in the PUBG franchise is taking this approach.
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BLINDSPOT’s Hero Shooter Elements
Yang was able to go into depth about the upcoming PUBG: BLINDSPOT‘s take on the hero shooter genre, which has become incredibly popular in the last few years. The market has become incredibly lucrative and incredibly risky, with only a handful of games getting the chance to enjoy continued success. When discussing the use of hero shooter elements in Blindspot, Yang referenced the genre in terms of the PUBG universe and its thematic aspects:
“PUBG: Blindspot incorporates hero shooter elements, so every new character must be carefully designed to ensure unique appeal and gameplay differentiation. We need to consider how each character’s weapons and gadgets contribute to the game, as well as whether their silhouettes remain visually distinct in combat.
All of this is important in a hero shooter, but the PUBG universe is not the Marvel universe where every character is superpowered. The heart of the PUBG IP, according to Yang, is its focus on regular people, and that was important in fleshing out these hero shooter features:
“However, I personally believe that the PUBG IP’s identity lies in ordinary people wielding firearms. That’s why we want the characters to be regular individuals from this world who each have their own preferred weapons and gadgets, rather than superheroes with supernatural abilities. This is the direction we are taking in development.”
Those working on Krafton’s upcoming shooter game are also incorporating 5v5 matches alongside these hero shooter elements, throwing Blindspot into the deep end of one of gaming’s most competitive markets. Yang also spoke about this part of the equation, stating that the format resulted from experimentation—that when the team had to “refine team size, map scale, and destruction mechanics,” they discovered that 5v5 was the best way forward.
While competition is heavy, players can expect Krafton to have a few tricks up its sleeve. PUBG: Blindspot‘s top-down perspective sets it apart in a big way, and the game’s gunplay is wholly different from its competitors. Moreover, BLINDSPOT hasn’t delved too deeply into live service elements yet, with Yang admitting that features like “character skins, weapon modding, and crosshair customization” have been requested by fans following the Steam Next Fest demo, as opposed to being ideas originating from the team itself. Krafton is working to give fans what they want, while also working to improve the core gameplay of the title. Hero shooter fans should keep an eye on PUBG: Blindspot because it’s shaping up to be something truly unique.
Shooter
Action
Multiplayer
