PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS is running a limited-time mode called Ally Duo that drops an AI companion named Ella into your squad. She talks, loots, drives, marks enemies, and shoots, all driven by NVIDIA ACE technology running locally on your graphics card. The mode lives under PUBG Arcade as a beta and sits well away from the normal battle royale queue.
Quick answer: Open PUBG on PC, go to Play, then Arcade, then Ally Duo, on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU (RTX 2080 Ti or RTX 3060 minimum) with Windows Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling enabled. The Play button stays greyed out without compatible RTX hardware. The beta runs until July 1 at 07:00 UTC.
What Ally Duo does and where it runs
Ally Duo pairs one human player with Ella on Sanhok, the smallest full-size PUBG map. You start matchmaking solo, and the game turns you into a duo with Ella once the match begins. The lobby is capped at 64 entrants made up of players, AI companions, and bots.
Communication runs through Ella, not other players. Voice chat with the rest of the lobby is switched off, and the mode steers you toward Team Only and Push to Talk so the conversation with your companion becomes the main interface. You can issue orders with natural speech or typed text, asking her to watch for specific loot, mark targets, drive, or push an angle.
Under the hood, voice commands are transcribed by the NVIDIA Parakeet speech-to-text model, then interpreted by a 2-billion-parameter Mistral-Nemo-Minitron small language model that produces context-aware responses. Ella speaks back through a Krafton-built text-to-speech model. All of the inference is folded into the graphics pipeline to keep latency low, and the language follows your client setting across English, Korean, and Simplified Chinese.
System requirements for the Ally Duo beta
Ella runs on optimized, lightweight models, but the mode is gated to NVIDIA RTX hardware because the AI executes on the GPU. There is no fallback for non-RTX cards, so players outside these specs simply cannot launch it.
| Requirement | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| GPU | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti or RTX 3060 | GeForce RTX 4070 |
| VRAM | 8GB | 12GB |
| System RAM | 16GB | 24GB |
| Driver | NVIDIA 555.85 or later | NVIDIA 555.85 or later |
| Windows setting | Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling on | Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling on |
The mode is part of Update 42.1, which went live on PC on June 17, 2026. Ally Duo itself is PC-only, even though the wider update reaches PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, iOS, and Android. There is no extra purchase, since PUBG remains free to play.
How to enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling
The mode will not work properly until this Windows setting is on. If the Play button looks active but Ella behaves incorrectly, this is the first thing to check.
Note: confirm your NVIDIA driver is at 555.85 or newer before launching, since older drivers will block the feature.
Ella’s limits and built-in constraints
Ella is fenced into the mode by design, which makes the beta easier to evaluate and keeps her from being treated as a full human replacement. These rules are baked into how she behaves.
| Constraint | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Solo drop | Ella cannot drop independently |
| Player death or exit | Ella leaves the match |
| Disconnects | Reconnecting is not supported |
| Spectating | Spectate, death cam, and replays are disabled |
| Languages | English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, tied to client language |
| Game knowledge | Based on data before Update 41.1 |
That knowledge cutoff is worth flagging. Ella’s understanding of the game stops before Update 41.1, so she may be unaware of newer additions such as the Tilted Grip and Hybrid Scope. In a live-service game that keeps changing, an AI teammate’s information drifts out of date quickly.
What Ella is like to play with
In practice, Ella drops in like any teammate, looting and chatting while you call out what you need. Ask her to keep an eye out for a suppressor or specific ammo, and she acknowledges the request and pings items she spots. She narrates her own actions out loud, announcing when she is covering or moving to your position.
The cracks show under pressure. She can mark an enemy more than 200 meters away through trees, then a moment later insist there are no enemies in sight when targets are clearly visible. She reported a care package as gone while it was still intact, and gave no answer about who took it. She also stood by without firing while an enemy opened up at point-blank range.
Ella also refuses to talk about anything outside the match. There is no small talk, no off-topic banter, just a teammate that repeatedly describes itself as a walking PUBG encyclopedia. That makes the experience feel flat next to a real squad, even when the mechanical actions land.
How long the beta lasts and what it is testing
The Ally Duo beta is live now and ends July 1 at 07:00 UTC. Krafton is using the two-week window to gather real player feedback, watching conversational responsiveness, tactical behavior, and latency to decide whether AI companions belong in PUBG long term. Full mode details and map notes sit in the official Update 42.1 patch notes.
For now, treat Ella as a technology preview rather than a dependable partner. She will follow basic orders and call out loot, but her perception is inconsistent, her game knowledge is dated, and she has no conversation beyond PUBG itself. If you want a guaranteed teammate during the window, she fills the slot, just not always the way a human would.
