The short version
- KRAFTON announced on October 29, 2026 that a live-action PUBG: Battlegrounds series is in development at Netflix.
- Donald Glover (Atlanta, Community) will direct, write, executive produce and star. His brother Stephen Glover co-writes and executive produces.
- There's no plot, wider cast, episode count or release date yet. One estimate from What's on Netflix puts it at 2028 at the earliest.
- It's the first PUBG screen project with a named creative lead and a streamer attached. KRAFTON first talked about PUBG films and shows back in 2020.
What was announced
The news came from KRAFTON, the South Korean company behind PUBG and India's BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India). Netflix is developing the show, and Donald Glover is running it from almost every angle: he'll write it, direct it, star in it and executive produce it.
According to Deadline, as reported by tbreak, the project grew out of a first-look deal between Netflix and KRAFTON, after lengthy negotiations. Netflix then brought Glover on. Neither company has shared a story, other cast or a date.
Image: KRAFTON
Who's making it
Image: Zerocade
The Glover brothers have worked together for years. They made all four seasons of FX's Atlanta, which Donald created and starred in. He won two Emmys for it, one for acting and one for directing. They also worked on Amazon's Mr. & Mrs. Smith series and the miniseries Swarm. Glover signed an exclusive deal with Amazon in 2021. Deadline says it has since become a first-look deal, which leaves him free to make this for Netflix.
Neon, the film company behind Best Picture winners Parasite and Anora, is involved through its TV arm. KRAFTON's entertainment subsidiary LV3H is producing for the game side.
How do you adapt a game with no story?
This is the interesting part. PUBG launched in 2017 without a real storyline. You land on an island with up to 99 other players, grab whatever gear you find, and try to be the last one standing as the safe zone shrinks. It's a format, not a plot.
That leaves Glover a lot of freedom. On paper, it suits a writer known for strange, genre-bending TV. Atlanta regularly swerved into surreal one-off episodes. The battle royale idea has worked on screen before, in films like Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, so the premise itself isn't the hard part. The question is what Glover's version adds to it.
Why it's a big deal in India
For most Indian players, PUBG means the mobile game first. PUBG Mobile was hugely popular here until the government banned it on September 2, 2020, along with 117 other apps. KRAFTON came back with BGMI, which launched on Android on July 2, 2021, and passed 270 million Google Play downloads by July 2022.
BGMI itself was then blocked on July 28, 2022, and allowed back in May 2023 after a trial relaunch. It's still one of the biggest mobile games in the country. We've also covered KRAFTON's lighter BGMI Air for low-end phones.
Image: Zerocade
The series is based on PUBG: Battlegrounds, not specifically on the mobile games. Nobody has said whether BGMI or PUBG Mobile will feature, so treat any tie-in as unknown for now. Netflix is available in India, so the show should be watchable here when it arrives, but there's no date to plan around.
PUBG's road to the screen
The PC game, created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene, entered early access in March 2017 and fully launched in December 2017. It has sold over 75 million copies on PC and consoles, and went free to play on January 12, 2022. It holds seven Guinness World Records.
KRAFTON has tried to reach screens before. It announced film and TV plans in 2020, and an animated series from Castlevania producer Adi Shankar was announced in 2021 but hasn't been heard from since.
Netflix, meanwhile, is building up a big games slate. A live-action Assassin's Creed series and a Gears of War film are in the works, along with animated Minecraft and Clash of Clans projects.
Next, watch for casting news. That's usually the first sign a series has moved from development into production.
