Krafton, Inc has revealed the next step for the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds franchise with PUBG: New State. Developed by the PUBG Studio, New State aims to recreate the original battle royale experience and evolve it into a new, futuristic adventure for both new and veteran players on both iOS and Android platforms. 

PUBG: New State is the latest game in the growing PUBG franchise from the original creators of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and will be a free-to-play experience for mobile players later this year. 

“Given the fan support and massive success of the previous games, it is humbling to be able to build and introduce the next game in the franchise that revolutionized the battle royale genre worldwide.” MinKyu Park, Executive Producer of PUBG: New State, tells us. “We want to build on that legacy by creating an experience that pushes the limits of mobile gaming. Watching our team come together to develop a global product has been an amazing experience and we are confident that it will speak to all audiences when it launches later this year.”

With New State, the PUBG experience has been built from the ground-up, optimized specifically for mobile platforms. It aims to take the gunplay and mechanics that many loved in the original iteration, as well as combat stylization, and pair it with new improvements thanks to the studio's rendering technology called Global Illumination. Unlike the current mobile experience for PUBG, this iteration is specifically created to maximize the mobile platform in a way that the original didn't. 

Additionally, PUBG: New State will also offer new features to players as well, including new ways to customize in-game weapons, performance enhancements, fire mode selections, and even grenade launcher attachments. Drones, ballistic shields, combat rolls, and more will also be a part of the newer experience as well as new vehicles to take on an 8x8 open world. 

As for when the new game is set, PUBG: New State will thrust players into the year 2051, years after the original game. The battleground in question is called TROI, a new stomping ground where veterans of PUBG can see just how much the universe has changed between the two title settings. 

“At Krafton, our goal is to create masterpieces that provide premier gameplay experiences. With PUBG: New State, the next title in our growing PUBG franchise, we hope to realize that vision,” says CH Kim, CEO of Krafton, Inc. “We are  giving our full support to PUBG Studio to ensure that they continue to develop games that feature their unique identity, further solidifying its position as the  pioneer of the battle royale genre.”

For more information, and to sign up for updates, you can check out PUBG: New State's website right here. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's Season 2 is landing right now. While the new update contains numerous new things to explore the game over, perhaps the most interesting is the Outbreak zombies experience. Call of Duty's zombie modes have generally been self-contained, round-based entities that task players with discovering secrets and solving puzzles while fending off the infinite and ever-more-challenging hordes of undead.

As of today, that's all about to change. Outbreak gives players a dynamic open-world zombies mode. Not only will you face off against a voracious tide, but world events and exploration are key pillars of Outbreak, allowing you to use vehicles and take advantage of a huge play space to blast back the blight. Outbreak can be enjoyed with a crew or solo.

"In round-based, zombies are constantly coming to you," says lead systems and Outbreak designer Kevin Drew.  "This mode, you're driving that experience, you're moving through the space, you're encountering the zombies along the way at your own pace, and you can make decisions there. You can explore, drive around, go find zombies in the world, or things we call world events, go loot. But at the end of the day, you need to go complete the objective and  that's your carrot on the stick that's gonna make everyone converge. That's where we can turn up the difficulty and make that a very focused moment with the tension."

After completing a main objective, you have an opportunity to catch your breath and complete some upgrades. After that, you can choose to warp to a different, more difficult region to complete another objective or "cash out" of the experience with an exfil. The difficulty in this mode ramps up rapidly if you're hitting beacons and porting to new regions with jumps in power, so it's more of an elevator up instead of a stairway. A multitude of different world objectives and events await players in the new mode.

"So I mean, there's all sorts of different experiments that that the Requiem team is running into in these outbreak zones," says creative director Corky Lehmkuhl. "So there's genetic DNA scanning, there's purified Aetherium that they're gathering and sending back. So one objective, Aetherium harvest, you see these canisters that kind of pop up. The device is harvesting Aetherium from the atmosphere, and it creates this crystal that Requiem wants to send back to headquarters to study. So you have to get the canister, you put it on your back. And then, of course, zombies are attracted to you. So you have to get to the rocket and deposit it and you have to do that twice. And then you send the rocket launchers up in the air." 

While there will be intel and lore bits to discover in Outbreak, the big questlines and narrative beats won't come online until Season 3. For Season 2, it's all about exploring the new iteration on the zombie core. Expect Treyarch to experiment heavily with Outbreak as the Seasons for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War continue. Of course, Season 2 brings plenty of new content to core multiplayer and Warzone as well, check out the trailer below!