PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has launched a very detailed lore website to introduce players to the increasingly complex web of story content surrounding the online game's ninth season. The new season revolves around a map called Paramo, an ancient ruined city set near an active volcano. In a first for the game, Paramo has a different layout in every match, forcing players to change their strategy every time they drop in.

Ever since its release in 2017, PUBG has been a prominent feature of the battle royale genre, a genre it all but founded. Nowadays there's no end of battle royale games that pit players against each other in large numbers to fight until there's only one left standing. The genre has even transcended out of shooting gameplay with unconventional takes like Fall Guys. To this day, PUBG remains one of the go-to titles when players think about the genre. It's one of the few titles that can compete with Fortnite for prominence.

Fans have associated PUBG with many things over the years, but until very recently, in-depth lore was not one of them. That should change with the official launch of the PUBG Lore website, which gathers all the info fans need to understand the complex storyline being developed for the game's most recent seasons. Currently the website hosts lore documents relating to in-game artifacts, as well as an ongoing series of short stories following a group of characters first introduced in season 8. The lore surrounding season 9 and Paramo was initially revealed through a brief, cryptic video narrated by Star Trek actor Jonathan Frakes, concerning an archaeologist's quest for the Fountain of Youth.


Season 9 hardly marks the debut of story content in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but this new lore website does represent a bold new era of accessibility for the plot. Previously, the story content was something of a secret, hidden under the surface for dedicated players to uncover through evidence-gathering and speculating. These new short stories and documents are a much different direction for the story to take, and it's clear that the developers put a lot of work into putting it all together.

The only question that remains is what this is all building toward. PUBG has always been a somewhat grounded, largely realistic shooter, albeit one with a somewhat fantastical premise. The introduction of the Fountain of Youth and occult practices like those carried out by the character of Dr. Northrop seem to be indicating that the battle royale is gearing up to turn toward the supernatural. Whether these mystical elements will actually influence the gameplay of the battle royale remains to be seen, but one thing's for sure; fans can finally say that they play PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds for the story.