PUBG: Xeno Point Hands-on Preview – Winner Winner, Alien Dinner
Krafton has set about expanding the PUBG universe, from collaborating with top K-Pop acts, to creating new modes which have little to do with the more traditional battle royale mode, the main, redundantly-titled PUBG: Battlegrounds is known for.
MP1st was among a very select group of outlets invited to play their upcoming Rogue-lite sci-fi mode, Xeno Point, at one of their offices in and around Seoul, South Korea. We fought jetlag and spent some time with this upcoming mode, and have our hands-on preview ready now.
Miramar, Post-Invasion
Xeno Point represents a major departure from the typical PUBG format. It’s a team-based PvE rouge-lite sci-fi looter shooter, set amidst a small section of a reimagined Miramar map, one in which aliens have taken over, and it’s your job to “do your part” and clear them out. Everything begins at a main hub, where players can gear up with items purchased with currency earned in previous runs. Naturally, you’ll start out slow and only be capable of taking on lower-tier levels. There are multiple sectors to clear per tier, each representing an increasing level of difficulty. It all culminates in tackling a Tier 4 boss sector. Clearing this boss results in greater difficulty level options for each previously cleared tier.
In true rogue-lite fashion, if you die, you lose all of your gear. But, you get to keep any Supers, skill tree nodes purchased, selected starting gear, and any customizations you’ve done to your character. So, dying can be used as a chance to learn from mistakes, and a random sector from the Tier 1 class of levels is opened when you try again. So, not everything plays out exactly the same every time you start over. This can add some variety to time spent in this mode, though, as you improve, death becomes less likely.
Difficulty Climb
Our first round of Xeno Point was a Tier 3 sector. Tier 3 is described as having a high difficulty level. Naturally, our experience went just fine. Thanks to having a developer on our team, as well as higher-end gear, staying alive wasn’t too much of a challenge. We moved from location to location, staying within a sphere that set the size of each skirmish. Waves of enemies would come in, we’d kill them, and then move on to either kill more enemies, capture relics at control points, or pick up loot. I quickly realized I had forgotten to equip anything beyond a meager rank 1 pistol and whatever gear is on your basic grunt. This made staying alive at the start a bit harder than it might have been otherwise, but thankfully, enemy drops quickly improved my loadout situation.
Still, after having played Xeno Point for a good half hour or so, it hardly felt like PUBG. Indeed, you could tell anyone Xeno Point was a brand new game, and outside of the interface and gun play, it’d be believable. The look, feel, and sound of the action was worlds away from the gritty, mostly realistic aspects PUBG is known for. While voice chat wasn’t on during our session (most likely because half the team was local developers who did not speak much English), I could see this being a mode you play more casually, with friends, as you trash-talk or otherwise socialize while killing hordes of alien enemies.
While we were given a very guided tour of this new game mode, the intended appeal was obvious. You work your way up from nothing, and before you know it, you and a group of friends are working together to take out an ultimate boss, combining super moves such as a bullet shield, drone swarm, and space laser attack to hit weak points in a phased battle. All in the hope of acquiring improved loot, crafting materials, and new skills. The end-game Tier 4 boss proved a good challenge, as we didn’t complete it in our one battle against it. Part of that is because the boss acted as a bullet sponge and continued to pummel us with devastating attacks, even right as we revived one another. That part felt a bit frustrating, but perhaps changing strategies up would have helped. It’s also a sign that Krafton wasn’t holding back and hand-holding players, just like Battlegrounds expects you to remember to reload weapons you pick up before firing.
Sticky Questions, Releasing Soon
After our defeat on the end-game boss, we had enough time for one more sector, and quickly chose the Tier 3 fight we previously cleared. This time around, three of us chose the bullet shield super (oops), but that ended up working in our favor as we cleared that sector’s boss in practically no time. This brought up one aspect of Xeno Point which might become an issue for late-game players; waves of enemies and objectives were identical between playthroughs. This could be because we were on a tailored build of the game. Given the overall controlled nature of Krafton’s trip, this seems as good an explanation as any. On the other hand, this is the first time such a game mode has been launched for PUBG. So, it’s equally as likely the company will learn what keeps players around, because grinding out the same sequence of battles isn’t as sticky as introducing some randomness.
Krafton is continuing to expand PUBG beyond just the mode it’s famous for. Xeno Point is a prime example of that. As a standalone game, it probably doesn’t have enough content for most people. But as an additional mode to PUBG? Well, it could just be sticky enough to keep players around who might otherwise have switched to this month’s latest trendy looter shooter. If the goal is to keep players within the world of PUBG, then variety will definitely help. It’s also due out soon, too, as PUBG: Xeno Point is currently set to launch on April 8, 2026 for PC, and April 16, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.
MP1st attended a press tour hosted by Krafton in and around Seoul, South Korea, in exchange for coverage of this and other titles.
Stay connected to MP1st and the latest news by following us on Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Google News.
