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Netflix is making a live-action ‘PUBG’ series, and Donald Glover is doing basically everything

No plot, no casting, and no release date yet, but the Glover brothers are already in the drop zone.

By Beatrice Diane Bartolome Oct 30th, 2026, 9:00 am

Pour one out for your inventory slots, because PUBG is headed to Netflix. The streamer announced this week that a live-action series based on KRAFTON’s battle royale phenomenon is in development, with Donald Glover attached to write, direct, executive produce, and star. Yes, all four. The man is determined to be the entire squad.

He won’t be going solo, though. Glover’s brother and longtime collaborator Stephen Glover, who co-created and wrote on Atlanta, will also write and executive produce. Rounding out the EP list are Michael Schaefer for NEON TV, Fam Udeorji for Gilga, and Taeseok Jang and Sujin Lee for LV3H, KRAFTON’s entertainment arm, which is involved in development and production.

As for what the show is actually about? Your guess is as good as ours. No plot details, no casting beyond Glover, and no release window have been revealed. Scripts still need to be written, so don’t expect to see this on your screen before 2028 at the earliest.

A game with no story and a lot of possibility

PUBG launched in 2017 as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and is widely credited with popularizing the “100 players parachute onto an island” format that Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Warzone later ran with. KRAFTON claims the franchise holds seven Guinness World Records, and while the game isn’t at its 2018 and 2019 peak, it still has a huge player base.

PUBG has basically no lore, however. There’s no hero’s journey, no sprawling mythology, just chaos, loot, and a shrinking circle of doom. For a lesser creative team, that’s a problem. For the guy behind Atlanta and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, it’s a blank canvas of endless possibilities. Glover has a knack for making familiar genres feel strange, and a battle royale is ripe for that treatment.

Netflix’s live-action game gamble

Netflix has been very good at animated game adaptations, from Arcane to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Live action has been trickier. The 2022 Resident Evil series was canceled after one season, which makes PUBG and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed series the streamer’s biggest live-action swings yet. Assassin’s Creed wrapped filming earlier this month and looks likely to land in late 2027, while David Leitch’s Gears of War film is still being scripted.

This isn’t the first time PUBG and Netflix have been linked, either. KRAFTON announced an animated project with Castlevania producer Adi Shankar back in 2021, but it has gone quiet, and this announcement doesn’t mention it.

So, will Glover give us a tense survival thriller, a satire of gamer culture, or something weirder than any of us can predict? Knowing his track record, probably the last one. Until then, we’ll be over here practicing our parachute landings.

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Beatrice Diane Bartolome - Managing Editor

Beatrice Diane Bartolome (THEY/THEM) is a writer, editor, journalist, and chronically online person who has somehow turned being obsessed with pop culture into a career. They are the Managing Editor of The Mary Sue, where they write and edit about fandom, politics, and the beautiful hellscape that is the internet. They have a bachelor's in psychology, an unhealthy attachment to fictional characters, and absolutely no intention of logging off. You may either find them posting about Finn Bennett's role as Aerion or recommending The Secret History by Donna Tartt to anyone willing to listen.