PUBG Update 18.2 releases next week with the new map Deston

PUGB Battlegrounds is ready to unveil its first new map since the battle royale went free-to-play at the beginning of the year: Deston.

"The wait is over. Our ninth new map we’ve been teasing about all this time is finally here this update," developer Krafton said in a blog update. "Welcome to the 8x8km near-future and ravaged world: DESTON!

"Deston (formerly known as Codename: Kiki) presents you diverse biomes – a flooded downtown embracing one of the tallest skyscrapers you’ve ever seen in PUBG: Battlegrounds, a murky swamp, clear coasts, beautiful mountains, and unexplored islands."

Deston - which hopes to "diversify gameplay" - will also include a raft of new items and features, including a new Airboat vehicle and the Ascender, which enables players to quickly ascend, be it to surprise an unsuspecting team or retreat from an attacking one.

Deston will roll out as part of the 18.2 Update on July 13 for PC, and July 21 for console players. As well as brand new locations, there'll also be an exclusive new weapon for Deston visitors, too. The 12-gauge slug shotgun the O12 has "superior accuracy and range compared to any other shotgun to make it more efficient in mid-to-short range encounters".

Did you know that The Callisto Protocol was ultimately separated from the PUBG universe because the team at developer Striking Distance felt the connection had become "disingenuous"?

Talking to GamesRadar+, Glen Schofield opened up about the game's surprising relationship with PUBG during a recent interview, which explored how The Callisto Protocol evolved when it felt "too much like Dead Space". Schofield maintained that the PUBG tie-in was never forced on The Callisto Protocol, and that the team simply started to drift away from the idea as the game developed.

"Coming into it, when I started in 2019, PUBG was still on the heels of being this giant, giant thing," Schofield explained. "And they're working on a story, this timeline, and they're like, you think your game could fit on the timeline? And I'm like, it'd be kind of cool. Maybe I need the PUBG thing? I don't know. And it wasn't because I didn't think that we had a good enough reputation. Maybe worldwide that would help springboard it. But the truth is, as we're making it, we're going farther away. Marketing or PR, whatever that gave us, it felt better just to be on its own. We didn't talk about sales, we just talked about what felt right." 

One of the PUBG community's most prominent sources of news, datamines, and insider information recently revealed that developer Krafton was reportedly trying to shut them down.

PUBG: Battlegrounds may be free-to-play but it hasn't gotten any easier to play for newcomers.