Krafton has officially canceled development on its extraction shooter, PUBG: Black Budget. The decision comes after more than a year of development and several closed alpha tests.
Announced in 2025, PUBG: Black Budget was Krafton's answer to the resurgence of interest in extraction shooters, a genre that saw renewed attention with titles like Arc Raiders and the full release of Escape from Tarkov. While PUBG: Battlegrounds found success in 2017 during the peak of the battle royale craze, Krafton aimed to adapt to evolving player preferences.
The game underwent closed alpha testing in December and June, allowing players to test the game and provide feedback. However, Krafton stated that these tests did not yield satisfactory results, leading to the cancellation.
In a post on the game's Steam page, PUBG Studios explained the reasoning behind 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. We have therefore made the difficult decision to end development of PUBG: Black Budget." The studio thanked participants in the alpha tests and indicated that lessons learned would be applied to future projects.
This is not the first time Krafton has discontinued an experimental project; PUBG: Blindspot also faced a premature end. Despite the cancellation of Black Budget, PUBG fans still have PUBG DED.NET, a multiplayer roguelite announced at Gamescom, to anticipate. Development on that title is ongoing.