PUBG's first Chinese-style map "Rongdu" is about to be launched, and the e-sports battlefield will usher in a variety of cities

Cover News Reporter Cai Shiqi

Recently, KRAFTON announced that PUBG's tenth map "Rongdu" will be officially launched in early December, and this highest-spec new map with a width of 8,000 meters has also been unveiled in the video, and the appearance of a large number of Chinese elements is eye-catching.

Rongdu experience test match

At the end of October, the reporter participated in the closed-door experience meeting organized by KRAFTON, and explored the new battlefield of Rongdu as a player.

Bamboo forest, new energy vehicle factories and modern metropolis are a diverse blend

In the previous PUBG maps, the style of towns and wilds was basically the same, with Sano based on the Asian jungle, Taggo inspired by South Korea, and Mirama easily reminiscent of Mexico.

While most of these classic maps focus on the most salient features of the geographical archetype, the Rongdu city of China is inspired by the idea of multi-point flowering: there is a dense bamboo forest in the wild scene, and "Yulin" restores the freehand Suzhou garden to Rongdu as a new interpretation of the small town scene.

The newly added bamboo forest in Rongdu may be destroyed during the battle

In addition to the wilderness, the rows of skyscrapers and automated escalators in the mega city "Jadena City" bring new variables to the traditional "street fighting".

The factory scene familiar to players and audiences is also not absent in Rongdu, called "NEOX Factory", which is a large-scale new energy vehicle factory with a vehicle test track. In the test match, because the map has not been refreshed and narrowed to this area, there is no fierce confrontation in this area, and it is believed that after the official launch of Rongdu, players and professional teams will develop finals tactics and playing styles around the runway.

From bamboo forests, classical gardens, to new energy vehicle factories and modern cities, these traditional and modern scenes are intertwined with the vast arena of Rongdu, and the design style of diversified integration presents a very attractive Chinese-style map for players and players all over the world.

More space for cross-border co-branding and the emergence of a nascent economic system

In the test match in Rongdu, the reporter found that this map has great potential for cross-border linkage, which provides convenience for more cross-industry cooperation.

As one of the few realistic style products in the e-sports industry, PUBG has long been favored by traditional industries, whether it is the field of computer peripherals that is closely related to e-sports and games, or fast food, clothing and other industries, as well as brands such as automobiles and motorcycles, there have been many cases of products entering PUBG for cross-border cooperation, and more and more traditional enterprises like to use this way to carry out e-sports marketing to get closer to young consumers.

Rongdu has added a lot of space for cross-industry cooperation

For example, the restaurant can become the "Rongdu flagship store" of a catering brand, the new energy factory can become an "online exhibition hall" for an automobile brand to promote new models, and the façade of an urban skyscraper can directly replicate the use in reality, play dynamic promotional videos or hang signboards.

Now that the PUBG World Championship PGC is underway in Thailand, after the launch of Rongdu, the sponsors of the event will also find a marketing form that is more closely integrated with esports in Rongdu for next year's event.

In the test match, a new element added to Rongdu also caught the attention of reporters, namely the random drop of currency. Although the test match has made these currencies unusable, according to the relevant person in charge of PUBG, the development team is considering allowing players and players to use randomly dropped currencies to purchase supplies and even equipment in the game, which may increase the resource management competition dimension of the PUBG arena, which is also equivalent to a preliminary addition to the in-game economic system.

According to Krafton's plan, Rongdu will officially meet players on the 27.1 official server on December 6, which is also the end of the 2023 PGC and the start of the new tournament. The answer to how the "City of Glory" will rewrite PUBG's business and esports ecology will gradually become clear.