Since it debuted on Steam Early Access back in March, the wildly-successful battle royale shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has blown away just about all expectations with the game having reached upwards of over 20 million players, and as such, Microsoft appears to be giving the game prime treatment leading into its Xbox One debut.
Speaking in an interview with Polygon, Microsoft’s Nico Bihary (who is acting as executive producer on PUBG‘s upcoming Xbox One version) provided a bit more insight into bringing the game to consoles, and revealed that Gears of War 4 developer The Coalition was enlisted to provide support for the title’s release on the system.
Specifically, Bihary stated that PUBG is “getting the boutique, first-party, white-glove treatment from Microsoft,” as delivering the game on Xbox One has required “quite a bit of work” on the part of both developer PUBG Corps and Microsoft.
However, Microsoft has proven willing to “assist in any possible,” and while PUBG is technically a second-party title to Microsoft (given that no other console release for the game has been confirmed at this time), the company provided “first-party quality assurance” testing and The Coalition specifically was brought on to “help with the aiming and tuning of controller systems.”
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is currently available on PC through Steam Early Access, and will debut on Xbox One through the Game Preview Program on December 12th, 2017. More on the game’s future is expected to be shown at tonight’s broadcast of The Game Awards, with our first-ever look at gameplay in the game’s upcoming Miramar desert map.