'PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' Coming To Mobile Devices In China

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has been the talk of the video game industry since its early access launch in early 2017. The Battle Royale- esque multiplayer shooter took gaming by storm with its addictive, easily streamable gameplay. Until now, however, it had yet to penetrate a particularly fruitful corner of the market that western video game fans might not think about very much.

Chinese media conglomerate Tencent announced Monday it has plans to work with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds developer Bluehole to get the game on mobile devices in China. The initial announcement is only in Chinese, but Niko Partners analyst and Chinese gaming expert Daniel Ahmad clarified it in a tweet:

Tencent will also publish the PC version of the game in China. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is coming to the Xbox One Game Preview program on Dec. 12, but it appears Tencent’s announcement only applies to the PC and mobile versions.

In order to understand why PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds would come to mobile devices in China and (at least for now) nowhere else, one needs to step back and look at that market. Partially on the strength of mobile games westerners may not have ever heard of, China is now basically the biggest gaming market in the world. Tencent, in particular, is a heavy contributor to this market growth with games like the absurdly popular Honour of Kings , which is coming to the Nintendo Switch as Arena of Valor soon.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is a large-scale multiplayer shooter in which 100 players are airdropped into a humongous map full of gear and weapons to find. When a player is killed, they are done for good. The area of play also gradually shrinks, so the dwindling amount of surviving players are forced to come closer together over time. Due to its designation as an Early Access game on Steam, it is not even officially out yet and is still in active development, though it is supposed to be officially released by the end of 2017.

It is just the latest addition to Tencent’s powerful stable of popular multiplayer video games. The company also owns the popular competitive game League of Legends , which has an almost incomprehensible number of active players. Recently, Tencent invested in Snapchat and hinted at the possibility of using the mobile picture and video-sharing app as an eventual platform for mobile gaming, so their wheeling and dealing is not done yet.