Now YOU TOO can create custom games on the Playerunknown's Battlegrounds test server

When I saw that Playerunknown's Battlegrounds had given everyone on its test servers the ability to create custom matches, I shrugged. I'm sure some are interested in fiddling with circle behaviour, loadouts and vehicle spawns, but not I. I was content to continue with vanilla Plunking, especially when today's update also includes a car and a new DMR for my favourite map.

Then I learned about Zombie mode.

There's not much to it. A small team of humans has to survive against a server full of zombies in a pseudo-return to the game's DayZ roots. I say pseudo, because Plunkbat's zombies all have a human mind controlling them.

Previously anyone could play Zombie mode by loading into a custom game, but only hosts had the power to decide who lived and who had to play as the undead. Those hosts were mostly streamers that PUBG Corp had bestowed with the power to create custom games, and they'd always nab the human spots - but now anyone on the test server can make a game and pit themselves against the horde. The horde might not come, because I suspect there'll be a flood of people attempting to lure them into games of their own. Still, the change does mean that lovely online communities like, say, RPS's can organise their own Zombie shenanigans.

PUBG Corp go over the fine details of how to create custom matches in this announcement, though it all looks straightforward. They also mention that while creating a custom match is currently cost-free, they point to server stability worries and say this "may change this in the future to ensure everything runs smoothly and the system remains sustainable long-term". Creating custom matches will be possible on the normal servers "once the system is proven to be stable".

A new car and DMR also landed in today's update, though they're also confined to the test servers for now. The gun is a QBU that replaces the Mini-14 on Sanhok, and the car is a pickup truck that "excels at moving across Sanhok's hilly landscapes". Given how Sanhok's whole deal is about packing players together into a smaller space where using vehicles after the first few minutes seems unwise, it'll also excel at attracting bullets from everyone on the map.

More details can be found in these here patch notes.