It's that time again, already. Chinese tech and entertainment giant Tencent is looking at investing in PUBG parent firm Bluehole. 

Word comes by way of The Korea Herald, which has confirmation from the Playerunknown's Battlegrounds maker that Tencent is considering an investment.

Local media reports that this investment will be to the tune of $468m. Combined with Tencent's prior five per cent investment in Bluehole, the Chinese firm will have a total of $651m invested. That represents a ten per cent stake.

As Playerunknown's Battlegrounds grew in popularity last year, there were reports that Tencent was looking to either buy or invest in developer Bluehole. That firm spun off the folks working on the battle royale behemoth into its own company, PUBG Corp, in September of last year.

Tencent did not end up buying Bluehole or PUBG Corp, but did secure the Chinese publishing rights for the battle royale blockbuster. As a part of this deal, the entertainment giant has been teaming up with local police in China to track down people making hacks and exploits for the title with several people being arrested.

At the start of 2018, roughly half the game's playerbase was from China, but growth in that region has halted - there's speculation that this might be due to local consumers waiting for Tencent's local version of the game - currently it is available via Steam but this is in something of a grey area - or even a free-to-play edition.