I'm not sure who the PUBG x Payday collab is for, or why it exists

Match quality has been on the PUBG devs’ minds of late. The team said that adding a map selection would have its drawbacks: longer wait times, more bots. But it’s a feature that it believes will propel the battle royale game forward, and that’s why it’s going ahead with it.

Then, a few days later, PUBG announced a collaboration with Payday, with a new game mode and a monetary incentive to play it. Where, I have to ask, did the concern go?

I played the Payday heist game mode, and it’s fine. It’s aggressively fine, in fact. Fiercely mild. Three other randoms and I were dropped into half of a city block and asked to loot jewelry stores, all the while fighting off wave after wave of AI enemies. Intrigue slowly turned into boredom; the round I was in lasted half an hour because one of my squad seemingly didn’t want to leave. I stood next to the escape helicopter for ten minutes while my teammate made up their mind. I can still hear the rotors.

I’m not sure who this game mode is for. The cynic in me can’t see past the words ‘brand opportunity.’ You see it all the time with PUBG; it absolutely loves a collaboration. At the time of writing, I could buy a virtual Harley-Davidson to speed around Erangel if I wanted to – it would go very nicely with my Porsche and Bugatti. I understand the push for brand deals – it’s money at the end of the day, and they don’t actually impact that game. But this effort to transform PUBG into a jack-of-all-trades hub for gamers just might.

“One of the main reasons we have been hesitant to expand map selection is that it divides the matchmaking pool and may impact overall matchmaking conditions.” That’s from the dev letter announcing the new map selection feature. It makes sense: giving me more freedom in how I play the game gives the developer less control. There is a trade-off – one that has clearly been agonized over – with this feature. With this in mind, then, where does the slew of half-baked arcade modes come into play? Do they not just split the already split player base even further?

The Payday heist is nothing but a minor distraction for PUBG battle royale players. It’s something I could only see myself playing for the in-game rewards, and even then, it probably isn’t worth it. Fighting wave after wave of predictable, dumb AI enemies is the antithesis of what’s allowed PUBG to endure – there’s no drama, no stakes, no tension. It offers very little, much like the Xeno alien wave-defense game mode that preceded it. These additions are a novelty at best, and a further dilution of the playerbase at worst. Most likely a bit of both.

An additional wrinkle to the Payday mode is the $100,000 prize pool. It’s open to streamers only and is largely based on viewer numbers, putting a hefty spotlight on the heist distraction. It’s an inorganic attempt at funnelling attention to the shiny new thing, and for me, it’s a waste of money, since said new thing is absolutely rubbish.

There appears to be two different schools of thought at play: one that wants to preserve and maintain the player experience of PUBG, and another that needs it to become something it isn’t. Bolting genres to the side of your success story doesn’t guarantee quality – it’s just experimenting with your player base. I worry that it does more harm than good, and in a time when having a steady stream of players is like gold dust, squandering their trust could mark the beginning of the end of PUBG.