PUBG’s plan to beat Fortnite, Roblox, and every other game

Roblox and Fortnite are two of the biggest games around, and a huge part of why is because they aren’t just one game: instead, they’re vast platforms where you can party up with your friends, dress up in ridiculous digital outfits, and quickly jump from one experience to another. Back in the day, Fortnite copied PUBG by making a battle royale, and now, PUBG is mimicking Fortnite by trying to become more of a platform than a game.

As part of a roadmap released earlier this year, PUBG developer Krafton said that it would let players create their own modes as part of an alpha, and it revealed more details about the alpha this month. This week, Krafton CFO Dongkeun Bae also discussed the company’s vision for “PUBG 2.0” in an earnings call. “It will not just simply be a battle royale game per se,” he said through a translator.

The game will also be “a gameplay platform” and Krafton is developing “wide-ranging modes under that objective.” It seems like this approach will be a lot like Fortnite’s, which offers a mix of Epic Games-made modes and user-created experiences. Krafton also isn’t just doing user-generated content (UGC) because it’s “currently the mainstream,” Bae said. With UGC, if it’s opened up to the broader playerbase, players will be able to “create many different things” with PUBG.

The shift makes sense. By opening the PUBG — which is still one of the most-played titles on Steam — to different kinds of experiences, it could grow beyond just hardcore shooter fans. Fortnite’s battle royale modes are still quite popular, but you can also play lower-stakes modes themed around Lego, navigating obstacle courses, racing, and playing music together. Epic has put a lot of effort behind expanding from just being a battle royale experience, even some of them, like a combat-free party island, haven’t been big hits. And Roblox’s user-made Grow A Garden, which is a farming simulator, has been breaking concurrent player records.

In some ways, adding user-generated content is a continuation of PUBG and Fortnite following similar tracks. Like Fortnite, PUBG has big crossover events, for example. But PUBG’s creator tools have a long way to go to catch up with what’s possible with Fortnite and Roblox, though. Roblox was first released in 2006, and the company offers the Roblox Studio for making games and extensive resources for Roblox developers. And Epic is investing heavily in its Unreal Engine-level tools for making Fortnite experiences. But like with Roblox and Fortnite, PUBG players may have already invested time and money that makes switching over to a new game that much more difficult. By letting players make their own experiences, Krafton can keep those players interested in the PUBG universe and potentially pull in new ones.

One thing Krafton may also learn from Fortnite: this kind of player-driven expansion can take a long time. Epic has been working and iterating for years to build up Fortnite’s ecosystem of user-made experiences, and even then, Epic’s own modes are usually the ones with the most players. It will probably take a while to know if Krafton’s PUBG 2.0 plan is a winner winner chicken dinner.