PUBG’s Mothership is back, and dying in Xeno Point: Hell can cost you equipped gear

The first sector might feel familiar. By the time you reach the Mothership, you’ll be fighting at what used to be Xeno Point’s highest difficulty. The new Xeno Point: Hell gameplay trailer sets up a tougher return for the limited-time PUBG: Battlegrounds mode, where enemies adjust to the size of your squad and a failed run can strip away part of your equipped loadout. The mode opens 18 November on PC and 26 November on console, with roughly two weeks to play on each platform.

One difficulty, with the hardest fights saved for the end

The previous version of Xeno Point let players choose between Normal, Hard and Impossible. Hell folds all three into a single run. Sector 1 starts at the old Normal difficulty, Sector 2 moves up to Hard, and both Sector 3 and the Mothership use the old Impossible difficulty. A comfortable opening is only a measure of how your squad handles the first sector; the toughest stretch starts before you even board the ship.

Squad size changes the balance as well. The mode has separate settings for one to four players, adjusting enemy health, attack power and how much currency players can earn. If someone joins or leaves during a stage, the game recalculates the balance for the current group and displays a notification. A squad that loses a member mid-run will therefore face a different balance from the one it started with.

What you lose when a run goes wrong

Death still clears everything in your inventory, but Hell can also take a random item from your equipped weapons and gear. Leaving a match mid-stage carries the same penalty. The difference matters when you start another run: you may have to replace something you were already using as well as the supplies you were carrying.

The update reworks several skills around that risk. Prime Striker protects weapons when you begin the next session after dying, while Prime Conduit protects gear. Starter Boost gives you an Adrenaline Syringe at the start of that next session. The three skills offer different ways to recover, so the choice depends on what you most want to carry into another attempt.

There’s also a change returning players may notice on their first reload. A vest previously made you invulnerable during the reload window; in Hell, it only reduces incoming damage temporarily. The existing invulnerability during healing and Super Skills remains. If you relied on the old reload protection to stay exposed, that’s one habit to rethink before the later sectors.

Mothership clear times and Special Drops rewards

The PUBG Bridge leaderboard ranks players by their fastest Mothership clears, giving squads a reason to return once they’ve beaten the mode. The separate Special Drops missions offer goals along the way: play a match, buy your first Blue Chip Skill, clear a sector three times, enter the Mothership three times and deal 200,000 total damage to the Architect. The reward line-up includes themed combat clothing, a vest, a helmet and a Xeno Point Hell P90 skin.

When Xeno Point: Hell opens on PC and console

• PC: Opens 18 November at 07:00 UTC and runs until live server maintenance on 2 December.

• Console: Opens 26 November at 07:00 UTC and runs until live server maintenance on 10 December.

If you’re playing for the cosmetics, check the Special Drops deadline as well as the mode schedule. PUBG lists the reward event as ending at 00:00 UTC on 2 December for PC and 01:00 UTC on 10 December for console.