Why have we become obsessed with a game where nothing happens for minutes at a time?
It's because Battlegrounds is something rare in games:
A multiplayer thriller.
[Intro music]
You parachute into an enormous stretch of countryside, either by yourself or with a few friends.
On landing, you scramble for weapons and body armor and then the hunt begins.
There are 99 other players out there, any one of which might have you in their crosshairs at any moment.
As players die, the map gets smaller. Damaging walls of blue energy funnel the survivors into a final showdown.
And the last one standing wins.
This is Player Unknown's Battlegrounds.
If this is your first time hearing of it, I'm impressed!
Even though it's still in Early Access, it is one of the most popular games of the year.
And it deserves to be.
Battlegrounds is a gripping experience.
Fraught with tension and moments of explosive action.
But it's also a game where you might not see another player until 20 minutes into a match.
Or in rare cases, you might even win the game without firing a shot.
If you have played it, though, you know that those 20 minutes of nothing will have you tense.
Almost tingling from the sense of danger.
How does Battlegrounds sustain that level of suspense when, for a lot of the match...
...there really may not be anybody else around?
Why do players talk about it almost like it's a horror game?
The answer is that while Battlegrounds might seem like an action game, it's actually a thriller.
And it uses thriller storytelling techniques to heighten the tension of its matches.
Let's talk about what a thriller is.
Whether it's a book, a film or a game, a thriller aims to put the audience in a heightened state of adrenaline.
But it does this differently than horror, which is probably its most closely related genre.
Instead of reveling in the joyful adrenaline of the action genre, or the scares and the conceptual dread of horror...
Thrillers want to draw the suspense out for as long as possible.
We've talked about the tension and release cycle of effective horror before.
But while horror tries to build tension to a crescendo, to the big payoff of the scare...
...Thrillers let you savor the tingling sense of danger.
And when something does eventually happen and that tension is broken...
You're only given a moment to breathe before the stakes are raised and the suspense ratchets one notch higher
A good thriller has four characteristics:
Clear stakes, a pervasive sense of threat, time pressure, and escalating danger.
And it so happens that Battlegrounds delivers on all four.
Let's go down the list.
First up: clear stakes. A good thriller has clear stakes from the start.
There's a killer on the loose.
Terrorists have seized a building full of hostages.
A dictatorship is forcing children to fight to the death.
Battlegrounds presents a similar life-and-death struggle:
There are 99 killers around you. You have one life and to win, you must be the last one standing.
Killing isn't the point:
Survival is.
And PUBG's portrayal of violence underlines that.
The action in Battlegrounds is brief and fatal, with little room for error.
If somebody gets the drop on you, even with a pistol, you're probably dead.
Even a successful gunfight can leave you wounded and vulnerable.
Where the action genre delights in its violence, a good thriller has you fearing it.
And because you fear it...
The ever-present threat of violence fills all of the game's peaceful moments with tension.
Every moment a bullet isn't flying over your head, you become more paranoid.
More on guard. "I know they're out here somewhere"
Which leads nicely to number two: A pervasive sense of threat.
Thrillers live off of creating and sustaining tension.
And every element in Battlegrounds...
The weapons, the terrain, even the sound effects communicate a single message:
You are never safe.
The map itself makes you feel exposed.
It's enormous and because the play area keeps contracting, you're forced to spend a lot of the time on the move.
Which is a dangerous prospect in Battlegrounds.
Running through that game's open fields and sparse forests is just an invitation to get shot.
And exploring the tangled buildings of the city risks running into an ambush or a trap.
The safest thing you can do is hole up in a house and lay your own ambush.
But that creeping blue wall always ensures that you're never allowed to do that for very long.
The weapon design forces you to take a lot of risks, too.
Most of the guns you find in PUBG are short or medium ranged, which incentivizes aggressive play.
There are sniper rifles and long-range scopes too, though.
Just enough out there that you never feel too secure.
One of your enemies might already have one.
At any given moment, you could be in somebody's crosshairs.
And that vulnerability is constantly hammered home by the game's sound effects.
With a map this expansive, you often hear opponents before you see them.
And those punctuations - the rumble of a car engine, or the crackle of gunfire in the distance...
They constantly remind you that even if you can't see them, there is somebody out there.
For all you know, they're hiding behind the next door, or taking aim from a nearby hill.
And the guns are so loud that even if you win a gunfight, you probably better bug out afterwards...
...in case somebody heard the noise and follows it to your position.
Despite being on an island, possibly miles from the nearest human being...
You still feel that violence could descend on you at any moment.
Then there's number three: time pressure.
Thrillers are often built around a ticking clock.
The countdown of a bomb, a storm about to hit, British troops trapped on a beach with German armies closing in.
This device gives momentum to the story.
And ensures that the characters can't just go into hiding or stop and establish a meticulous plan.
Battlegrounds has a literal countdown clock. Every few minutes, the map contracts.
And when the time runs out, players have to either run for the safe zone...
Or risk getting caught behind the damaging wall of energy that creeps over the landscape.
And this not only keeps you moving, but also layers an element of stress on every single decision you make.
You can see a farmhouse over there, and you could loot it. There might be better guns inside or precious bandages.
But you've barely got any time before that wall starts to close in.
It's not very unusual to see teammates yelling at each other to hurry when that timer's nearly up.
Stick around for too long and you will find yourself running in a panic with that blue wall at your heels.
Which might be one of the most intense moments in the game, really.
And finally, number four: escalating stakes.
In any good thriller, every small victory will only raise the stakes higher.
The heroes are put in more danger, not less.
They've diffused one bomb, only to find out that there are three more.
They've taken out one terrorist, but now the hero is out of ammo and the rest of the terrorists know exactly where he is.
Battlegrounds is designed to up the ante as the match goes on.
Because the blue wall forces only the surviving players closer together...
Your opponents naturally get winnowed down to the most skilled, best-armed players.
Gunfights become more frequent as everybody converges into a smaller space.
You have more to lose, too.
Not only have you gathered better guns and armor now...
But as you climb the rankings, you can almost taste that win.
As the player count ticks down to the single digits and you reach that final standoff...
The suspense gets honed to a razor's edge.
It's just you, your foe, and the promise of that good, good chicken dinner.
Of course, pacing is not the only reason that Battlegrounds is popular, but it's definitely a big one.
You may be wandering alone for most of every match.
But the game's thriller-style pace ensures that you will be on the edge of your seat for that entire time.
Good hunting, everybody. See you next week.
[Outro music]
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