PUBG PC bot lobbies in NA/EU servers trouble many, demand matches with real players

Developed by PUBG Corporation, which is a subsidiary of Krafton, PUBG: Battlegrounds was released in 2017. It is one of the best-selling and most-played video games of all time.

A few weeks ago, Krafton decided to make PUBG free-to-play. Following this, PUBG saw a significant increase in its player count, bringing it back to the list of Top 10 games on Steam.

Unfortunately, the game is no exception with players encountering bugs and issues every once in a while. That being said, several (1,2,3,4,5) PUBG PC players say that they are getting bot lobbies.

While it is pretty common for new PUBG PC players to encounter bots to help them get the hang of the game, some players who have played the game for hundreds of hours say that they are also getting lots of bots.

The majority of PUBG PC players complaining about bot lobbies are either playing the game on North America (NA) or Europe (EU) servers.

Playing EU DUO FPP on PC during prime time has issues with the matchmaking. There is plenty of downtime with rounds not starting, and those that start often have bots. Usually like 5-10, sometimes 30-40. This isn’t an issue with the player count, because there is multiple lobbies being created simultaneously all the time. How it works is that the server gets up to 70-80 players, but for some reason, the matchmaker won’t add more players (my guess would be that there is some problem with the matchmaker creating too much lobbies at times / not accounting for people leaving some maps).
(Source)

I tried to find answers for this yesterday, but didn’t get any, so let me try again. Yesterday I played three matches in Solo FPP in a normal lobby (almost zero bots), after these three matches I got put into lobbies that all have around 80% bots (according to pubg lookup). Today I logged in and again, I could play the first three matches without bots and after that I am faced with bot lobbies again, where the match timer starts with only 20 people in queue. What is going on? This wasn’t an issue for me pre f2p patch. Is anybody else experiencing this? I don’t want to play against bots. EU servers btw, so population is really not an issue.
(Source)

On further investigation, we found out that this is not the first time players have experienced lobbies full of bots. With some reports dating back to almost a year, it looks like the bug has been affecting players for quite a while now.

EU Squads Riddled with Bots.
Its EU GMT and for the past 2 hours(which should be prime time for EU) almost every server my squad has joined is split 20-80 players to bots. Playing with a friend in NA and it’s not happening there. The game hasn’t declined to this point over xmas has it? Anyone else seeing this?
(Source)

Unfortunately, PUBG Corporation is yet to comment on the matter, leaving many confused if they will ever face real players. Many say that there is something wrong with matchmaking but others say that lack of players might be the reason why the game fills the lobby with bots even in high ranks.

We hope the developers shed some light on the matter and clarify if this is a bug or lack of player base on NA and EU servers.

Nonetheless, when we come across more information, we will update this space to reflect the same so make sure you keep checking this space.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Gaming Section so be sure to follow them as well.

Featured image source: Steam

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