Report / Published 2026-10-31

PUBG is becoming a Netflix live-action series with Donald Glover

Krafton has announced a live-action PUBG series for Netflix written, directed and produced by Donald Glover, with no release window or plot yet.

An empty television studio set with a circular cream and blue platform, a round table and four chairs at its centre, black cameras on tripods around the edge, pale wall panels and a large round light overhead.
Conceptual editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.

THE SHORT VERSION

  • Krafton is adapting PUBG as a live-action Netflix series, with Donald Glover writing, directing, executive producing and starring, announced on 30 October according to Eurogamer.
  • Both reports list the same executive producers and neither has a release window, plot summary or further cast.
  • IGN notes Krafton ended development of the PUBG: Black Budget spin-off earlier this month, and reports the franchise as one of the publisher's most recognisable properties.

Krafton is turning PUBG into a Netflix series

PUBG is being adapted as a live-action series for Netflix, with Donald Glover set to write, direct, executive produce and star. Krafton announced the adaptation on 30 October, according to Eurogamer. The publisher owns the battle royale franchise, and its entertainment arm LV3H is involved in both developing and producing the show.

Glover's brother Stephen, his writing partner on Atlanta, joins as a writer and executive producer. The other executive producers named by both outlets are Michael Schaefer for Neon TV, Fam Udeorji for Gilga, and Taeseok Jang and Sujin Lee for LV3H. Neither report names a showrunner beyond that group, and neither says how many episodes have been ordered.

What the announcement does not include

There is no release window, no plot description and no cast beyond Glover himself. Eurogamer says plainly that there is no word yet on a release date, a story or who else will appear. IGN reports that the announcement came in a press release and frames the project as part of Krafton's push to expand its biggest franchise into what the company calls original entertainment content.

That gap matters for anyone trying to judge the project. A game adaptation can be a faithful retelling, a new story in the same world, or a production that borrows only the name. None of the material published so far says which of those this is, and neither outlet has seen a script or a budget. Krafton's release, as IGN reports it, presents the show as part of a wider entertainment push rather than a one-off.

The lore the series could use

IGN spends time on the fiction behind the game, because the game itself began as a purely multiplayer experience with no story mode. The Battlegrounds are described there as the work of a billionaire named Sergei Kalimnik, the lone survivor of a Soviet attack on the fictional island of Erangel in 1965. After what the fiction calls 17 days of conflict, he bought the island and recreated the scenario with 100 conscripts fighting until one remains. IGN concedes that a series about 100 people dropped on an island sounds like a stretch, then argues the lore gives it a reason to exist.

IGN compares the setup to Squid Game and notes that the official PUBG Universe page ties it to a centuries-old tradition it calls Magna Venari, the Great Hunt, described as the hunting of human prey. Whether any of that survives into a television script is unknown. It does at least give a writer more to work with than a shrinking circle and a frying pan.

Why Krafton wants this now

The adaptation arrives while Krafton is reshaping the franchise. Eurogamer reports that earlier this month the publisher said it was ending development of PUBG: Black Budget, an extraction shooter spin-off announced nearly a year earlier. The publisher's wider catalogue includes Subnautica and InZoi, but PUBG remains the property with global recognition and a filmable premise.

Eurogamer describes Krafton calling PUBG one of the world's most enduring gaming franchises, credited with popularising battle royale and holding seven Guinness World Records. The same outlet notes that revenue for the PUBG series grew 25% in the first half of 2026, and lists the publisher's other games as Subnautica and InZoi. A television deal is a way to convert that reach into a second kind of product at a moment when the games side is being consolidated.

A wider run of game adaptations

IGN places the announcement alongside other celebrity-led game adaptations, including a Battlefield film that Michael B. Jordan is reportedly shopping to studios with Christopher McQuarrie. The site's file on Death Stranding's anime adaptation covers a similar move in the opposite direction, from game studio to streaming service, and the same question about how much of the game's fiction survives the transfer.

The pattern is not new, but the volume is. Streaming services need recognisable titles, and game publishers own a shelf of them. A film or series also travels to audiences who never install the game. The site's reporting on Roblox's content push shows the other side of that trade, where a platform produces so much material that distribution rather than creation becomes the scarce good.

What would count as progress

The next signals are concrete: a writer's room, a production start, a cast list, a first trailer. Until one of those appears, the announcement is a deal rather than a series. Eurogamer's report is careful about that, and IGN's piece is explicit that the information came from a press release rather than from interviews with anyone making the show.

For readers, the useful comparison is with the publisher's own numbers. Konami's results this week show how a games company turns existing franchises into revenue across media. Krafton is attempting the same manoeuvre with one property and one very famous lead, and the measure of it will be whether the show reaches anyone who does not already play the game. Neither outlet reports a budget, an episode count or a distributor beyond Netflix.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. PUBG live-action series in the works at Netflix, with Donald Glover set to direct and star
  2. PUBG Is Getting a Live-Action Series on Netflix Written, Directed by, and Starring Donald Glover
Keep the thread.

Follow Console games to find related stories on your next visit.

THE WEEKLY EDIT

The week, made clear.

Stories worth understanding, brought together in one weekly edition.

Share this page

Instagram, TikTok & other apps

Copy the page link, then paste it where your chosen app supports links. You choose whether to send or publish.