After popularising an entire genre, PUBG has struggled to keep its once insane momentum in the face of its brighter free-to-play competitor Fortnite, but its partnership with Xbox is turning its fortunes around.

Concurrent player numbers on Steam have fallen from a peak of 1.75 million to just under 300 thousand in recent months – still good enough to claim the second spot on the Steam charts, but nowhere near enough to challenge Fortnite’s playerbase of over 40 million players jumping into a game each month, and concurrent player counts in the millions.

As GameSpot reports though, PUBG has had some good news come from its Xbox fanbase, with Microsoft announcing that 8 million players have booted up the game on Xbox One since the game launched on the Game Preview program in December. Sure, those players aren’t all still playing (and certainly not all at once), but it’s an encouraging second life for a game that has seen a competitor come along and thoroughly beat it at its own game.

Microsoft’s exclusivity grab was a big move at the time, keeping PUBG from making its way to PS4 or Nintendo Switch, but in the six months since the game has become a little less valuable as an exclusive. It’s remained a big focus for Microsoft though, as GameSpot reports, with free play periods and PUBG console bundles being a notable part of their strategy to get the console into the hands of gamers who already own a PS4.

It may be a long way from the unstoppable juggernaut it once was, but PUBG might just be able to settle into a new niche as a flagship title for the Xbox, depending on how long the exclusivity deal stays in place – and whether this version can continue to smooth out the performance and gameplay issues it’s been plagued with since launch, or receive the same level of care it’s now receiving on PC.

And if PUBG really wants to scrape back some of the ground it’s lost to Fortnite, knuckling down and making the experience better for its players is probably a better option than trying to sue them into submission, after the recent lawsuit against Fortnite for copyright infringement was dropped.

Check out Microsoft’s new plans for PUBG on Xbox One below, with the recent E3 trailer:

The article was originally published on Brag Magazine