PUBG Black Budget canceled in shocking blow, 2nd spinoff cut
Krafton has canceled PUBG Black Budget, the first-person extraction shooter it announced in November 2025. PUBG Studios confirmed Thursday, Oct. 1, in a post on the game’s Steam page that development has ended, less than a year after the spinoff was revealed, Eurogamer reported.
For players who joined its closed tests or added it to a Steam wishlist, the message is final: no version of “PUBG: Black Budget” is coming out.
Why PUBG Black Budget was canceled
The studio said an internal review of the project led to the decision. “After reviewing the project’s development status and future direction, we concluded that its current direction would not allow us to deliver an experience players could enjoy over the long term,” the Steam post said. “We have therefore made the difficult decision to end development of PUBG: Black Budget.”
PUBG Studios also thanked players who tested the game. It said it will “carry what we learned from development and testing into future projects, continuing to listen to players as we explore new gameplay experiences,” according to Polygon.
What players will miss
The game’s Steam page still lets players wishlist it, but Polygon said the cancellation notice will likely be the last update posted there.
PUBG Black Budget was pitched as a tactical PvPvE shooter set on a 2.5-by-2.5-kilometer island inside a supernatural zone called the Anomaly, with squads of up to three and up to 45 players per session, according to Gematsu. Eurogamer described the island as trapped in a time loop, with strange weather and other anomalies meant to make each match play differently.
The first closed alpha tests ran in December 2025, Gematsu reported, and the biggest test took place in June, according to Eurogamer.
A long road to cancellation
Polygon tied the game’s reveal to the extraction shooter boom that followed the 2025 launch of “Arc Raiders” and the full release of “Escape from Tarkov.” But the project appears to be older than that. Eurogamer reported it first surfaced in a 2023 Krafton financial report, and the publisher said later that year it was aiming for a release in the second half of 2024.
PUBG Black Budget is the second PUBG spinoff Krafton has publicly scrapped. “PUBG: Blindspot,” a top-down 5v5 tactical shooter that drew comparisons to “Rainbow Six Siege,” was canceled in March after two months in early access, Eurogamer reported.
What’s next for PUBG
Krafton still has another spinoff in the works. “PUBG: Ded.Net,” revealed at Gamescom in August, is a multiplayer shooter with roguelite elements and an ’80s look from Krafton’s studio in Madison, Wisconsin, according to Eurogamer.
The core game is still getting new content, too, including the Xeno Point alien invasion mode. For more on the franchise’s roots, read Brendan Greene’s reflections on PUBG’s legacy, and see our gaming news for more.
Reporting from Eurogamer, Polygon and Gematsu contributed to this story.