PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds first trialled flare guns in March, within a titular event mode set on Miramar. They've reappeared in other limited-time forays since, and now PUBG Corp is considering installing them full-time. Live now, Flare Gun Stage 2 acts as a public beta.
"This week’s event mode is going to be another test of the Flare Gun system," explains the developer in this Steam Community post. "We’ve looked at your feedback from the last round, but want to gather a little more data before we pull the trigger on any changes or deploy the item to live. Unlike the long event before, this test will run from Wednesday until Saturday."
Live now through October 13 at 7pm PDT / October 14 at 3am BST, PUBG Corp talks feedback, application and the future of flare guns in the main campaign:
As for the event mode itself, it mimics normal squad games with the rare chance that flare guns spawn alongside normal loot. The thinking here is to "basically beta test the Flare Gun as normal PUBG loot with the intention to add it as a rare drop to normal games once the test concludes."
Set exclusively in Erangel, Flare Gun Stage 2 pits four-person squads against one another. Weather conditions are locked on Sunny, Red Zones and general care packages are enabled, as are friendly fire and killer spectation.
If flares are fired inside the safe zone, planes drop special care packages. If flares are fired outside the safe zone, they drop special vehicles. A map icon identifies special package locations. Good luck.
