The publishers behind PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), the original battle royale experience, have unveiled their next project at Gamescom 2026 and it looks totally unhinged.
Titled DED.NET, the game is a multiplayer FPS game that features a roguelike progression system that modifies gameplay runs depending on various factors. That sounds pretty normal until you see the trailer, which features bear-costumed shooters, eye-patched women riding motorcycles and killer little dolls on the hunt. And of course, drug-taking for various in-game buffs.
Set in the 1990s in a “strange and unpredictable world” called Cascadia, the game’s gonzo tone blends the decade’s grungy feel with the vibe of Jackass with explosions and death-defying stunts at every turn. The chaos becomes comedy in five themed worlds for players to explore, ranging from a neon-drenched arcade and kids' play area called Cryptid Cove to a Blair Witch-esque setting named The Church, complete with cultish decor in the form of an altar made of twigs.
The atmosphere of DED.NET couldn’t be different from the more serious tone of PUBG, which featured much slower gameplay loops and a military realism—notions that have clearly gone out the window in Krafton’s new game. PUBG spawned countless copies in the years after its release, all of which capitalized on the popularity of its battle royale format where players eliminate each other until only one winner remains.
The most successful of these clones was the cartoonish Fortnite, which continues to rake in over 2 million daily players with ease despite releasing in 2017. Constantly buoyed by buzzy crossover events with pop stars, superheroes and everything in between, the game has remained in the zeitgeist despite criticism from its cash-grab antics which mostly target kids. PUBG also launched in 2017 but has seen its popularity wane over the almost ten-year period, yet still attracts an enviable 700,000+ players daily.
Once a publisher like Krafton has such major success with a particular genre or style of gameplay, it can be extremely difficult to break out of that box. When they try, fans complain that the creator is shifting too far away from their roots, and thus they are kowtowed back to making what everyone likes. Meanwhile, critics pile up decrying the studio’s lack of innovation or bashing it for sticking to what it knows best.
Be that as it may, Krafton is working overtime to diversify its game portfolio—albeit under the PUBG umbrella, which provides its gaming experiments a relevancy and visibility they might lack without that connection.
Most recently, the publisher has been pushing its own take on the extraction shooter (another genre done to death in recent years). Titled PUBG: Black Budget, the game is “built around tension, survival, and the unknown” with players trapped on a mysterious time-looped island and tasked with capturing top-secret technology from an abandoned research facility.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.dualshockers.com/new-pubg-shooter-looks-like-jackass-fortnite/
