PUBG Mobile, the mobile version of the popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, has achieved a pretty hefty milestone. According to a new tweet, it’s hit one billion downloads worldwide. The title released about three years ago for iOS and Android with its popularity only rising throughout.

An “awesome new update” is coming to celebrate the occasion so players are advised to stay tuned. Even with the popularity of the current game, a sequel called PUBG: New State is currently in development. It takes place in a near-future setting and will feature different weapons and vehicles.

There’s also The Callisto Protocol, developed by Striking Distance (led by Glen Schofield of Dead Space fame) and coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC in 2022. Set in the PUBG universe’s future, it takes place on Callisto as players must escape from the nightmarish aliens in Black Iron Prison. We’re still yet to see gameplay, but Schofield promises it will be one of the “most terrifying games of all time.”

https://twitter.com/PUBGMOBILE/status/1373786682357657605

The PUBG universe is clearly on the brink of expanding into a much larger one in the coming years, and it seems the first steps for that are going to be taken very soon. While the battle royale title that kicked the whole thing off is still going strong, more games set in the universe are set to arrive soon.

As per a report by Bloomberg, Krafton – the holding company for PUBG Corp – has confirmed that a couple of new games are set to arrive soon. A new battle royale title for mobile devices is set to launch later this year, and will be based on PUBG. Additionally, another new game set in the same universe will also be launching for PC and consoels by next year.

The latter in particular is interesting. A recent report indicated that PUBG 2.0 is in development (as is PUBG Mobile 2.0), and if that is indeed an accurate leak, it might very well be the game being talked about here.

Meanwhile, the survival horror science fiction game The Callisto Protocol (bein developed by a team composed of various Dead Space developers, including creator Glen Schofield) is also set 300 years after PUBG, and is set to arrive next year.

We’ve been starved for announcements of games coming to Stadia for a while now, and though we still don’t have any word on the exclusives the streaming service is supposed to receive, we might have some information on a couple of upcoming ports. That comes to us from the ESRB, who have handed certifications to battle royale shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Square Enix’s retro turn-based RPG Octopath Traveler (spotted by Gematsu on Twitter).

PUBG is available on pretty much every other active platform in the market (with the exception of the Switch), so to see it make the jump to Stadia really isn’t much of a surprise- but it will be interesting to see how the streaming service handles the game’s large-scale competitive online nature. Octopath Traveler launched as a Switch exclusive in 2018, and has since also come over to PC, while a prequel is available on mobile devices.

Of course, neither of these games have yet been officially announced as coming to Stadia, but a Stadia Connect presentation is scheduled for later today, so it’s likely we’ll be hearing about this then. Stay tuned for more updates.

ESRB just rated what are likely leaks from the @GoogleStadia Connect later today:

Octopath Traveler: https://t.co/U2TNl40Fbw
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds: https://t.co/xZlAx3w7hA pic.twitter.com/NDxqn05ONH

— Gematsu (@gematsu) April 28, 2020

Brendan Greene a.k.a. “PlayerUnknown”, one of the pioneer designers of the battle royale genre and creator of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, seems to be done with it. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Greene detailed that he’s stepping away from the main game of PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds, one of the first battle royale titles released on the market, even before the current king of the mountain, Fortnite, had a mode for battle royale.

Greene has moved on to the PUBG Corp’s Special Projects division to work on projects they aren’t ready to talk about yet, but promise are “exploring, experimenting, and creating new technologies, tools, pipelines, and gameplay.”

“I have lots of other ideas in my head for games I would like to play and we’re going to see if other people would like to play them too,” Greene said about his new team and the work he’s doing with them. “That’s where we’re at. We haven’t really started anything yet because we’re team building.”

While the details aren’t ready for the public, Green says he does not intend to make PUBG 2.

He instead wants to make games that connect people through experiences. “The last man standing concept is great, but I’ve done that. I don’t really intend to make PUBG 2. I’ve done battle royale, it’s time to try something else. There are ideas about how we connect to people and how we provide the different experiences I have.”

“I’ve done the killing thing,” he added. “It’s fun. I think I’ve provided others with a good way of killing each other. But I want to explore some other things.”

While he is seemingly done with the genre, Greene holds no ill-will or distaste for it and actively wants the current team to continue making PUBG the best it can be. In fact, he hopes to even see Battle Royale e-sports soon.

“I want to see battle royale esports,” he said. “I think the team we have are doing a good job — it takes a long time to create a successful esport. It doesn’t happen overnight, especially the systems and procedures you need to run. I don’t care who does it — I’d love it to be us, I think it will be us — but that’s my dream.

“I’d also like to see battle royale stabilise, and see more people making their own battle royales out of pleasure rather than just trying to make a quick buck. Apex Legends did an amazing job, they didn’t hype anything, they just announced and delivered a great game. It’s hard to enter the space right now. I don’t envy the developer teams with that task.”

With the ever growing popularity of the genre and new games adapting the model (and doing so very successfully at that), he’ll probably get his wish, even if it means he won’t be part of it.