We all know the struggle: survive well enough into Phase 6, snaking through bushes with a ghillie suit, an AWM, Groza and level 3 gear, with the top 2 player in your sights. Only to realise that your 300-millisecond ping resulted in them shooting you first! We all feel the pain, including Tencent. As such, Tencent has vowed to bring local servers to the best battle royale game in the world… on mobile. Yes, PUBG Mobile South African servers are finally here, leaving PC and console players high and dry.

In July 2019, Tencent Africa announced that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) Mobile servers would arrive sooner rather than later. The company has now made good on their word. The announcement followed the recent release of a Middle East server, whereby General Manager of Global Publishing at Tencent Games, Vincent Wang, shared how the update will allow more players from around the world to enjoy PUBG.

Wang is definitely not wrong – few things are as bad as having to deal with terrible ping. Since the Middle East has enjoyed local servers, many players around the world – including Africa – have asked for PUBG Mobile South African servers. More so about when they would arrive. The good news is that the servers will launch with PUBG Mobile Lite in the local market.

As promised, PUBG Mobile Lite will be making its way into the South African Google Play Store later in August. This will allow for fans who own older Android phones to enjoy the battle royale phenomenon that is PUBG. There is literally no difference between the Lite version and the normal version, other than it using smart machine learning and artificial intelligence to cut back on resources required to run the game. The fact that it arrives alongside PUBG Mobile South African servers, however, is a testament of how much Tencent plans to support the game and make it future proof.

The issue, of course, is that Tencent’s main platforms – PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on Microsoft Windows and home consoles – are still lagging behind many multiplayer titles in terms of both servers, and server security. Fortunately, South Africans (whom still needs to play on European servers) do not have to worry about hackers too much. Even so, the threat remains. I am also of the opinion that local servers might not be the best idea for us, considering how few players could end up playing in the future. A good solution would be to allow players to choose which servers to connect to, but I digress. PUBG Mobile South African servers are finally here, and us PC and console players just have to wait for better days.

[Sources: Capetown Guy, Techsmart, NAG]

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Junior Editor at Vamers. From Superman to Ironman; Bill Rizer to Sam Fisher and everything in-between, Edward loves it all. He is a Bachelor of Arts student and English Major specialising in Language and Literature. He is an avid writer and casual social networker with a flare for all things tech related.