‘PUBG’ arrives on mobile in the US

Two weeks ago, Epic announced that its super popular Battle Royale mode for Fortnite will be coming to phones and tablets. While players debated how using touchscreens could ever be competitive against mouse-and-keyboard players, the game that made the genre a household name snuck up and dropped its own mobile version in the US. Right now, American players can download PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds for iOS or Android -- and both versions are free to play.

True, we knew the game would be adapted to mobile in China back in November by Chinese internet giant Tencent, but didn't hear anything about a stateside release, though Canadians got it last week. Americans get the same officially-licensed ported version, which understandably pares down the graphics and only has the original map. The game requires Android 4.3 or above and works on "500-plus" phones, while the Apple device version requires iOS 9.0 or later and requires an iPhone 5S or sooner and most iPads.