Krafton has renamed PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), to PUBG. Battlegrounds. This may prove to be as redundant as it sounds and help to keep the PUBG universe of lore intact. The change was spotted by PC Gamer, noting that the game’s new name is now official across all of its social media. What’s funny is that while Krafton has essentially removed all mentions of the game’s creator ‘PlayerUnknown’ from its social media and title pages on game stores, the end-user license agreement (EULA) and description, on Steam at least, still mentions the player’s name.
PUBG Renamed to PUBG: Battlegrounds As Krafton Expands the Game’s Universe
Players have not taken the change well. The Steam version of the game currently has mixed user reviews. Some are primarily complaining about the nonsensical name changes.
Krafton recently expressed interest in expanding the ‘PUBG universe’. There are multiple spinoffs of games and traditional media that use the franchise as a starting point. The South-Korean developer’s PUBG Mobile equivalent in India is called Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), which at least in writing didn’t have any mentions of PUBG. It is possible that the new name change to include Battlegrounds’ serves two purposes: keeping it away form the original game creator ‘PlayerUnknown’ and also tying it back to BGMI in a casual way.
Using just the PUBG name, at least two more games are in the works right now with PUBG: New State (mobile only) and PUBG: Cowboy. The Callisto Protocol, a sci-fi horror title from Dead Space, is also in development. It will be interesting to see if the game’s name changes to include PUBG when it releases next year.
The new name change can also be linked to the recent social media disappearance of Brendan Greene, PlayerUnknown himself. It appears that the developer has re-instated Twitter, after having deleted all his tweets and interactions. He also sent a very cryptic tweet to confirm it.
Krafton stated that Krafton was actively expanding the PUBG brand with a variety new experiences set within its universe when asked why the name change.
“Rebranding PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to “PUBG: Battlegrounds” is the first step towards realizing our vision. As you can see in our upcoming game, PUBG New State, additional titles will bear the PUBG brand.
PUBG: Battlegrounds is out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One along with being on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S via backwards compatibility.
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