Last weekend, the inaugural Red Bull Fight or Flight Grand Final took place at the Carriageworks in Sydney with Team Immunity taking the cake securing an all-expenses-paid trip to the PUBG Global Championship Grand Finals in California, from 23-24 November, as well as four OMEN 15 gaming laptops and top of the line OMEN peripherals. Over 1,000 players attended the tournament with 255 teams registered.

Red Bull Fight or Flight introduced a quicker variant of the PUBG battle-royale gameplay with a faster blue zone, double the loot taking place on a smaller map; Sanhok which forces more confrontations and fights than we’re accustomed to in PUBG. Professional PUBG player and streamer, kritikalmotion said “The faster game mode was incredibly fun to play as an alternative to competitive PUBG and your average matchmaking game.”

“The games were only 15 minutes as the blue zone shrunk fast and dealt more damage, so you were always moving. The loot spawns in Fight or Flight were highly concentrated meaning you could almost equip a full man squad at one compound. This meant you and your team could have been ready to move and take action almost immediately leaving very little downtime compared to normal PUBG. Consistent care package drops also meant there was a lot of high tier loot available which you needed because of the number of fights you take in fight or flight. A lot of normal competitive tactics were thrown out of the window as you made extremely quick choices and go with the flow of the game.”

Not only was the mode fun to play especially for amateur players, but it also made the viewing experience more action-packed for the audience both offline and online without the downtime of normal PUBG titles. “All of this resulted in a different kind of competitive PUBG to watch that has a very little downtime,” said Kritikalmotion.

With Red Bull Fight or Flight open to everyone, it gave an incentive for amateurs or even casuals to have a go-to experience a tournament environment. Kritikalmotion mentioned that the tournament “was a good gateway for amateurs to see the esports side of PUBG in Oceania.” 

“There were definitely some names I recognised from matchmaking who I knew were pretty good players and this was their first time playing a competitive event. This shows the value of a tournament like this giving accessibility to people not yet exposed to the esports side of PUBG. Will be interesting to see if some of these players now attempt to join the competitive scene after putting some good performances at the LAN. They also got to see the community atmosphere from the OCE competitive scene which had a big representation at the event.”

The Red Bull Fight or Flight tournament had a big presence during the recent PAX Australia 2019 with a massive stage collabing with HP Omen. The stage served as the first qualifier event where players and even attendees can rock up at the registration desk and compete in the tournament. Many attendees including Kritikalmotion were surprised at the size of the stand mentioning, “it was really cool to see the PUBG community embrace the Red Bull Fight or Flight x OMEN stand as a central hub during the event.”

“I was actually a little surprised by the size of it and it was awesome to be able to constantly come back to a place where so much of the community was congregating. On top of this during the matches, there was quite a lot of support from the general PAX crowd which can be seen in this video I took at the event”

PAX was amazing and it was great to meet so many of the community there as well as some of the influencers for the exhibition matches. It wouldn’t have been possible without the impressive effort from Red Bull and OMEN.

Leading up the Red Bull Fight or Flight finals event in Carriageworks, Sydney – we asked Kritikalmotion about his thoughts on the qualifiers and if there was any new talent emerging from outside the current pool of professional players. Players who potentially can be future pro players.

“I, unfortunately, didn’t get to see all the games but there were a few teams with a mixture of pro players and amateur, who did much better than I thought they would. GOD_Avo put in a great performance during the Last Chance Qualifiers and really stood out, especially because he was up against some of the pro players. He’s someone that I’ve seen a lot online in matchmaking as well before the event who always seemed like a pretty good player.”

The tournament was backed by big names such as Red Bull, HP Omen and ESL. Kritikalmotion said that “it was awesome that Red Bull and OMEN are supporting PUBG in our region.” He also mentioned that there aren’t a lot of PUBG events throughout the year with the only other major tournament being ESL’s AUNZ Championship.

“Hopefully there are more high-quality events like this to come. I could really see the competitive community embracing these events as we are so keen to play as many offline events as possible! The production quality and set was a really high standard on Saturday.”

Kritikalmotion, his team and other OCE players including the Red Bull Fight or Flight winners, Team Immunity will be attending the PUBG Global Championship 2019 kicking off this weekend in Oakland, California. We would like to Kritikalmotion for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions.

If you missed out on the Red Bull Fight or Flight grand final event, you can check it out on Twitch here.

Photos provided by Red Bull Australia