Image: Krafton
PUBG: Battlegrounds is getting a big extraction shooter spin-off next year.
Krafton has announced that PUBG: Battlegrounds is getting an extraction shooter spin-off next year. In the developer’s new financial report, it confirmed that a game codenamed ‘Project Black Budget’ is the next big PUBG game launching in the second half of 2024. Based on an early image from the game included in the report, it appears to have a sci-fi setting similar to Rainbow Six Extraction.
Here’s a slide from Krafton’s financial report confirming the game's release windows and platforms:
The next PUBG game is an extraction shooter
Krafton has enjoyed enough success from PUBG: Battlegrounds to start developing more games in-house, but ‘Project Black Budget’ will only be its third follow-up to the battle royale game since its release. The second was a game called PUBG: New State that launched in 2021, though it was later retitled to ‘New State Mobile’ with less reliance on the PUBG brand. Similarly, the survival horror game The Callisto Protocol was originally conceived as a futuristic PUBG spin-off, but development pivoted into making it an original project.
New State Mobile was notably a mobile game while ‘Project Black Budget’ is targeting PC and consoles, so this could be the first major successor to PUBG: Battlegrounds depending on how it shapes up. The game is certainly releasing at the right time, with extraction shooters arguably having their moment more than battle royale games right now.
For the unaware, extraction shooters share similarities with battle royale games, but lean towards PvE and PvPvE gameplay as multiple squads of players fight each other and AI-controlled enemies on a map at the same time. Unlike battle royale games, teams can decide to end the match with an extraction at any time, but they will want to explore the map to collect resources and tick off objectives first, so they can be better-equipped for their next match.
Call of Duty’s DMZ mode, Escape from Tarkov, Hunt: Showdown and Deep Rock Galactic are just a few of the most successful titles in this genre, but Krafton could take the crown if it has a unique twist on things. Bungie is also set to release an extraction shooter in the near future called Marathon, following up on its long-dormant IP of the same name.