PUBG Lite, while still in its Beta stages, has been launched in select countries since January 2019, initially released in Thailand. Since then, the game has been made available in numerous other countries, like Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Lao.
To date, PUBG Lite is available in more than 70 countries, even in a number of countries located in South America. See: Complete list of countries where PUBG Lite is available.
As of November 11, 2019, an official version of PUBG Lite has yet to be release for players in the United States. Players located in U.S., as well as other countries with inaccessibility are still finding clever means to play the games, despite some major drawbacks.
When can U.S. Players expect an official launch
After many attempts at reaching out to the developer to get some kind of clue on an official decision on the matter, we’ve gotten no real indication whether a plan exists for an expansion to the U.S market or not.
Each attempt rendered a vague response to the effect of: we are sorry to inform you that PUBG Mobile Lite is now only launched in some select countries. No further information is available currently on further expansion.
There are no official plans for a U.S release for the lite version of PUBG. At lease no plans which are being made available to public.
What does that mean for U.S. players
I would not rule out an official launch of PUBG Lite for U.S players just yet. The developer is currently focused on making the game available to markets where the full version of the game would otherwise be inaccessible for the majority of players due the prevalence of devices short of the enormous specification requirements of the regular version.
It is difficult to say definitively, however, even if the majority of US consumers played the full version, the inaccessibility gap would still be too big to completely ignore. It will take some time, but I would think that the lite version will be available for U.S player in the near future.
Why PUBG Lite instead PUBG Mobile
PUBG Lite has been optimized to run smoothly on entry level devices with low specs. PUBG Mobile Lite is 491 MB in size compared to the 2.0GB of space require by the full version. The lite version is also optimized to run on devices that have less than 2 GB of RAM. Whereas the full version requires a minimum of 2 GIG of RAM to run.
With the lite version, players can enjoy the same exciting gameplay without a resource heavy device.
Potential problems with global release
The lite version of PUBG exists independently of the full version. Each version runs on different game servers. Segmentation of the game’s playerbase can create some uneasiness given the success of the regular version. PUBG Mobile has been out since Mar 2018 and has amassed more than 100M downloads on Google Play.
Making the lite version available in markets where the original version has already been established may create some disparity and imbalance between two. That’s is not a real concern however, since the two versions have some meaningfully differences and cater to different user groups.
How to play from the U.S in the mean time
The are several ways to enjoy PUBG Mobile lite if you are not in a location with an official launch. The most popular way is to use is a VPN (virtual private network) server while setting up the game.
The process is fairly straightforward:
- Find a VPN client you’d like use from the app store.
- Set your server location to one with a PUBG Lite release. Preferably one which is closest to your current location but not necessarily.
- Install and setup the game your device and play.
There are many free and paid VPN services available. An alternative workaround that players use sometimes is to setup an emulator like Bluestack on a PC with a VPN service and play the game from that. There are better free VPN applications available on PC than there are on mobile.
