TL;DR
- After a government ban, PUBG is in India once more.
- The game is different now, with green blood, warnings of how the game is not real, and a few other changes.
- Most notably, though, the data servers for the game are now outside of China, which was likely the biggest reason the government banned it.
In September last year, the Indian government dropped the ban hammer on a slew of apps and games on the Google Play Store. The highest-profile of those apps was PUBG Mobile, which is one of the most popular Android games ever and the progenitor of the battle royale trend.
Now, eight months later, PUBG is in India once again (via TechCrunch). It has a new name (Battlegrounds Mobile India) and a few other notable changes. However, it’s still PUBG at its core and Indian gamers will likely still have a blast playing it.
Related: The best battle royale games like PUBG Mobile or Fortnite on Android
Aside from the new name, the biggest aesthetic change is the introduction of green blood. Changing the color of blood is a time-honored tradition for toning down game violence, going all the way back to the original Mortal Kombat on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, so this is nothing new.
Elsewhere, there are now warnings that pop up here and there to alert the player that the game is not real.
However, the game is still incredibly similar to PUBG. In fact, you can even transfer your information from the mainline PUBG to this Indian version, which suggests it’s mostly the same code but with some minor alterations.
One big change you can’t see, though, is where your data is stored. One of the main reasons the Indian government banned the game is its close connections to China through the Chinese giant Tencent. Now, though, Battlegrounds Mobile India data will be stored on Microsoft servers in India. This was likely the big change that got the government to allow the game.
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