Krafton closes free-to-play PUBG spin-off just two months after its launch, aligning with its strategy of leveraging Early Access to "quickly validate a game’s potential"

Krafton has announced the closure of PUBG Blindspot, a free-to-play PC version of its popular PUBG Battlegrounds, just two months after it entered Early Access. This decision aligns with the company's strategy to utilize Early Access launches to gauge a game's potential before committing full development resources, despite the PUBG series contributing to record revenue for Krafton.

Debuting in January as a top-down tactical shooter, PUBG Blindspot offered monthly updates and actively engaged with its community. Although it initially attracted 3,251 players, as reported by SteamDB, participant numbers recently dropped to only a few hundred, despite favorable reviews from players.

In a Steam announcement, Arc Team’s Sequoia Yang stated, "After careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that we are no longer able to sustainably provide the level of experience we set out to deliver through Early Access." Yang emphasized the importance of player feedback and support for future projects.

Krafton has also signaled a move towards a "small-team development structure" to allow for "early or targeted releases" such as Early Access. This approach enables them to quickly assess a game’s viability before investing further resources and scaling successful titles.

Despite this setback, Krafton is continuing development on PUBG Black Budget, an extraction shooter introduced in 2022 with a closed alpha completed in December 2025, as well as the mobile game PUBG New State, launched in 2021.

The company has outlined its vision for expanding the PUBG IP through cultural collaborations and sustained service improvements alongside game releases. Additionally, Krafton intends to transform the core PUBG Battlegrounds game into a versatile platform, incorporating "sandbox-oriented UGC that leverages PUBG’s core gunplay, mechanics, and physics engine," to build an ecosystem for player-created content.

In recent legal developments, Krafton lost a case against the leadership of its studio Unknown Worlds over the release of Subnautica 2. It was ruled that the company attempted to remove the studio's leaders to avoid fulfilling bonus payments, following failed attempts by the CEO, via ChatGPT, to justify the dismissals. The court ruling reinstated Ted Gill as the CEO, a decision Krafton has expressed disagreement with.