Earlier today, PUBG: Battlegrounds went fully free-to-play - and the effects are already being felt. While we can't see any data on how it's performing on consoles just yet, its Steam player count has increased significantly.
According to data from Steam Charts, PUBG's player count quickly surpassed the peaks of the days leading up to the free-to-play update and has climbed to a peak of 667,000 players today. This is the highest that PUBG's Steam player count has been for since May 2020.
PUBG's shift to a free-to-play model brings it in line with some of its main battle royale rivals, such as Call of Duty Warzone and Apex Legends. All players will now be able to get a Basic PUBG account for free, which grants you access to most of the game's content. Existing players that had previously bought the game have been automatically upgraded to a BATTLEGROUNDS Plus account, which has access to all content and the game's ranked mode. New players can pay a one-time fee of $12.99 to upgrade to a Battlegrounds Plus account if they want to try and climb the PUBG ranks.
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