PUBG Corp Responds to Feedback About Bot-filled Matchmaking in Console Games

A highly popular battle royale across all platforms, PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS pits 100 players against one another in a heavily-contested, weapon-filled struggle for survival. Or, so we thought.

The ranks of survivors have recently found themselves infiltrated with bots, or artificially intelligent computers that are designed to mimic real players. Released with Console Update 7.1 on Tuesday, feedback has been dismal and concerning from fans of PUBG.

To inform fans, PUBG Corporation released an official post on Reddit addressing the current state of bots and their affect on matchmaking.

In summary, PUBG Corporation is actively listening to their console players' concerns about being placed in lobbies where more than half of servers are not actual human beings.

Why are players being placed into matches with 80% bots?

To quote PUBG Corporation: "This is not the intention, but is happening due to a combination of MMR (which splits players up by skill) and the level of AI assigned to each resulting match (which determines the level of bots in the match). The simultaneous launch of Season 7, bots, and PUBG Stadia means that the previous trend information we had is not valid anymore and we need to make some adjustments to both of these settings."

How is PUBG Corp going to fix this problem?

To quote PUBG Corporation: "We obviously do not want matches being overrun by bots, but we need to be careful to not quickly rush a change without getting more data during peak hours this evening. Thus, we are gathering data over the next day or two in order to make adjustments to the balance of MMR and AI in the game. Because the number of players in-game naturally ebbs and flows during the day, we need to see data for at least a full day (including Stadia) in order to determine the best way to make further adjustments. Gathering information is important so that we make the right change."

It's notable that the game's developer is not too quick to pull the plug on a change most recently implemented. Avoiding the realities of unforeseen consequences without quantitative data is definitely for the better, so console Survivors will have to wait a bit longer for a proper resolution to this issue.