Variety is the spice of life, people always say. Just like life, your gaming habit should include a bit of variety from time to time. Otherwise, you’re probably not getting the full excitement that gaming offers.
If you happen to stumble onto this article for a bit of spice on top of your chicken dinners, then keep reading. Because here we’ll have a look at 5 PUBG-like mobile games you can try.
Now, you might be someone whose entire mobile gaming achievements have been on PUBG and you see no reason to play anything else. Well, you can think of these other games as backup plans in case PUBG no longer scratches that Battle-Royale-survival-shooter itch.
RULES OF SURVIVAL
This game is as close as you can get to a PUBG Mobile clone without actually being PUBG. The publisher of Rules of Survival (RoS), NetEase, was even sued by PUBG Corporation in 2018 in a copyright lawsuit for “similarities”.
But don’t let legal matters get in the way of having fun, when you can enjoy all the Battle Royale experience of RoS in an 8x8 km map along with 300 other players. Another fun feature of RoS is the ability to team up with your friends as part of a 5-man squad.
The game itself should play quite well on your phone thanks to excellent optimization. The easy-to-read display buttons are great when they are often a pain on a small screen. About 280 million players are already on board with RoS, so why not add yourself to that list?
KNIVES OUT
Here’s another Battle Royale game but with a twist: You can play it as a First-person Shooter. It’s a survival shooter also developed by NetEase but not quite as popular as its cousin Rules of Survival. Knives Out is still an excellent alternative to change up your PUBG habit.
In Knives Out, you battle with 99 other players in an island littered with weapons, so no surprises here. The game has an advantage over other Battle Royale games in that it takes up significantly less space on your phone. You only need about 600 MB compared to 1 GB or more in other games. But this also means the graphics aren’t quite up to par. This might be a bit of a letdown if you are used to greater graphical fidelity in mobile games.
Some players have made complaints about the rather difficult controls in Knives Out. Apparently that’s not a big issue in Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun has already produced 80% of the game’s revenues in 2018.
BLACK SURVIVAL
“Search, Craft, Attack, Run!” are what you will be doing in Black Survival, as the description of this Player vs. Player (PvP) game should tell you. In this game, you’ll be taking a break from the usual Battle Royale experience.
It’s a MOBA, Real-time Strategy game where you still need to compete with 9 other players in a deserted island to be the last one standing. There are 22 areas in the game that become restricted over time, forcing you to pick a fight with other players using over 600 weapon options. Now that’s a lot of ways to end someone’s (virtual) life. Black Survival is for those people put off by the storage requirements of PUBG and the likes. The game size is a mere 59 MB size that expands to 300 MB when installed. As you might have guessed, Black Survival doesn’t have a comprehensive shooter action like PUBG Mobile due to its size.
But as an RTS game it still has plenty of action that requires a lot of quick thinking and fast reactions. If you enjoy hoarding resources and crafting items, Black Survival should be right up your alley as well, because you’ll be doing a lot of it to come out on top.
FREE FIRE
What happens when you take the normal PUBG Mobile and shrink the number of players, weapons, vehicles, time limit, etc. in the game? Apparently you get Free Fire. As you can already tell, Free Fire is a less complex, less time-consuming version of PUBG Mobile. You are 1 of 50 players in the game on an island that gives you 10 minutes to win.
Free Fire also lacks in the way of weapon and vehicle choices, and isn’t as good-looking as PUBG Mobile. But with its simple gameplay and a quick time limit, it’s an excellent stress-reliever when you don’t have the time for an extended PUBG Mobile session. Free Fire from Garena has accumulated about 450 million players as of December 2019. This has contributed to the game earning a total revenue of $1 billion USD. Clearly, a more compact version of PUBG Mobile still has plenty of demands.
Free Fire makes up for its lack of weapon and vehicle options with quirky characters and lots of cool customizations and accessories for them. It also doesn’t have doors for those of you with acquired “door-o-phobia” out there.
LAST DAY ON EARTH
This is a post-apocalyptic zombie survival game where you craft, hunt, build and fight to survive completely on your own. Not exactly the most novel theme for a mobile game is it? But if you already enjoy multiple Battle Royale games, you can give this rather excellent zombie survival a try.
If you want to feel like Bear Grylls and “adapt and overcome” a world that is now filled with zombies, then Last Day on Earth (LDoE) can do just that. LDoE is about doing whatever it takes to survive. You can gather resources, craft materials, build up your safehouse, engage in combat with living and dead things, etc. It’s not the best looking mobile game in the world but the amount of content and interactions in the game more than make up for it.
In short, LDoE manages to still be quite fun even when zombie survival has become pretty saturated. Why not try it out for yourself by downloading it on your Play or App store?