Netflix is developing a live-action series based on PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, and Donald Glover is attached to write, direct, executive produce, and star. The project comes from Krafton, the South Korean publisher that owns the battle royale franchise, working in partnership with the streamer. Deadline broke the news on October 29, 2026, and Krafton confirmed it in a press release the following day.
Before anyone clears their calendar, though, this is a development announcement, not a greenlight. No release date exists. No episode count. No cast beyond Glover. Variety reported that plot details for the potential show are under wraps. What makes the story worth tracking is not just the four-job auteur attachment, but what it signals: one of Korea’s biggest game exports taking the scripted television route through a U.S. platform.
Netflix and Krafton Confirm a PUBG Series in Development
Krafton’s entertainment division, LV3H, is directly involved in developing and producing the adaptation. Korean trade coverage describes LV3H as leading the screen adaptation of the PUBG intellectual property. The producing roster is stacked: Michael Schaefer for Neon TV, Fam Udeorji for Gilga, and Taeseok Jang and Sujin Lee for LV3H all serve as executive producers.
Deadline reported the deal came together after lengthy negotiations, with Netflix bringing Glover in to lead the adaptation. Krafton’s own framing, per the press release, is that it wants to expand the franchise into “original entertainment content.” For a game that has spent nearly a decade as a multiplayer-only phenomenon, that phrase does a lot of work.
Donald Glover Will Write, Direct, Produce, and Star
Glover is not dabbling here. He is writing, directing, executive producing, and starring, an unusually complete creative hold on a video game adaptation. His brother Stephen Glover, his frequent collaborator, is co-writing and executive producing.
The brothers’ shared resume is the reason this reads as a prestige bet rather than a licensing cash grab. They worked together across all four seasons of FX’s Atlanta, with Donald creating, starring, writing, and directing while Stephen wrote and executive produced. They also teamed on Amazon’s Swarm, Guava Island, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Donald Glover won two Emmys for Atlanta, one for acting and one for directing, plus a Golden Globe.
The involvement of Neon TV adds unexpected texture. Neon has two Best Picture Oscars, for Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and Sean Baker’s Anora, and in May it extended its run to seven consecutive Palme d’Or winners at Cannes. Prestige adjacency is not a finished show, but it is a notable signal for a game adaptation.
Why Glover Could Say Yes to Netflix At All
Here is the detail buried in most trade writeups: the structural reason this project was even possible. Glover left FX in 2021 for a big exclusive overall deal at Amazon MGM Studios. That pact has since been renewed as a first-look arrangement, which frees him to work with other studios. A strict overall deal would have made a Netflix series close to impossible.
That also explains the lengthy negotiations. He remains an executive producer on Amazon’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith and is rumored to reprise his role on screen in the second season, likely in a limited capacity. If there is a scheduling story to watch here, that is it.
What a PUBG Series Could Actually Be About
For Glover fans who have never touched the game, the basics matter. PUBG drops up to 100 players onto a map with no weapons. They scavenge gear, vehicles, and armor, and the safe playable zone shrinks over time, forcing encounters. A full round usually wraps in under 30 minutes. The victory line is “Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner.”
The game entered Steam early access on March 23, 2017, and left early access with a full release on December 20, 2017. It went partially free-to-play on January 12, 2022. It has eight maps, with Erangel as the signature one. None of that tells us what the show will look like. No setting, era, character, or story structure has been announced.
The Lore Exists, But It Is Not the Announced Story
What does exist is franchise background. Per the PUBG universe page, the Battlegrounds were the creation of a billionaire named Sergei Kalimnik, the lone survivor of a Soviet attack on the fictional island of Erangel in 1965. He endured “17 days of conflict,” later bought the island, and recreated the trauma at scale with 100 conscripts fighting until one remained. The lore also references “Magna Venari: The Great Hunt,” a 15th-century tradition described as the hunting of human prey, built around the question “Why do some survive when others do not?”
That is rich material. It is also entirely unconfirmed for the series. Do not expect Kalimnik on screen until Netflix says so.
Krafton’s Bigger Play and What Happens Next
Krafton announced plans for a PUBG film and television series back in 2020. An animated series from Castlevania executive producer Adi Shankar was announced in 2021 and was previously in development at Netflix. Its current status, and whether it relates to this live-action project, is unconfirmed. Six years of trying is the real timeline.
The scale explains the persistence. PUBG has set seven Guinness World Records since its 2017 debut, including the record for the first video game to reach 2 million concurrent players on Steam. Korean trade coverage reports 75 million copies sold before the 2022 free-to-play shift and revenue above 3 trillion won in 2025. Those figures come from Korean-language reporting and are not audited in these sources.
Netflix’s adaptation slate is crowded: a live-action Assassin’s Creed series, a live-action Gears of War film, animated takes on Minecraft, Magic: The Gathering, and Clash of Clans, plus an Overcooked competition series. Elsewhere in the adaptation rush, IGN reported that Michael B. Jordan and Christopher McQuarrie are shopping a Battlefield film. The differentiator here is not the game. It is the auteur.
What should fans watch for next? A formal series order is the first milestone, followed by the first casting announcement beyond Glover. Both remain unannounced. Until then, the confirmed facts are narrow and clean: Netflix, Krafton, LV3H, the Glover brothers, and Neon TV, working on a show that does not yet have a release date.