PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds PUBG
PUBG in action. PUBG Corporation

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) has proven once again that it's an unstoppable worldwide phenomenon, adding more than three million Xbox One players in just its first month available as an early access title through the console's Preview programme.

Microsoft eagerly shared the sales milestone yesterday (11 January). Last month developer PUBG Corp revealed that the game had 30 million players across Xbox and PC, despite the game only launching in March 2017.

PUBG's arrival on Xbox One in December came in tandem with the game leaving early access with version 1.0 on PC.

On Xbox, Brendan Greene's acclaimed shooter is still very much unfinished, with developers combating various bugs and performance issues on top of striving to add various features from the PC version.

Rain and fog weather effects have yet to be added, not to mention Zombies mode, private games, custom games and PUBG's desert-themed map Miramar.

Issues still remain across all versions of the game, so despite passing v1.0 on PC, PUBG Corp still has a lot to work on – most notably the game's loot box system in the wake of an industry-wide controversy regarding the common practice.

Earlier this month PUBG Corp disclosed the drop rates for its cosmetic loot boxes, with some of the rarest items having a one in 10,000 chance of dropping.

For the uninitiated, PUBG has set the benchmark for the Battle Royale-style of shooter, in which a group of players are dropped onto a large map to collect items and weapons before competing to be the last remaining player or team.

The emergence and surprise success of PUBG last year has seen imitators emerge. Epic Games' Fortnite introduced a very similar mode that's been enormously successful on consoles, while countless pretenders have emerged on mobile devices.

Many other similarly structured games are expected over the years ahead, hoping to ape and hopefully improve on the PUBG formula.

PUBG is currently a console exclusive on Xbox One, and an important one at that. It was one of very few high-profile exclusives released for Microsoft's console in 2017, despite the launch of Xbox One X in November.

A PS4 version is inevitable, pending the terms of Microsoft's exclusivity deal.

Xbox One PC Microsoft