For years, battle royale has reigned supreme in the online shooter space, ever since PUBG kicked off the trend and Fortnite amplified it. However, a new challenger is emerging: the extraction shooter genre, with Arc Raiders leading the charge and potentially threatening battle royale's dominance.
For nearly a decade, players have fought to be the last one standing in games like PUBG: Battlegrounds, Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Apex Legends. While other subgenres like hero shooters have seen success, battle royale remains the most popular format. But Taeseok Jang, head of PUBG Studios, recognizes this won't last forever.
That's why the developer is expanding the PlayerUnknown experience into new territory. Their most significant move is Black Budget, currently in development as the Korean studio's entry into the extraction shooter market. "I believe in its potential, so that's why we are making Black Budget," Jang told IGN when asked if extraction shooters could ever surpass battle royales. "The genre itself is very complicated compared to other shooter genres in terms of gameplay, and as a developer, it's not easy to make a good extraction shooter. But I think Arc Raiders has proven that it has huge potential. So yeah, I believe that it has huge potential."
Arc Raiders has indeed become a breakout hit, selling over 14 million copies and reaching nearly 1 million concurrent players shortly after launch. This level of success is rare for live-service shooters recently, with games like Concord and Highguard shutting down within weeks. Even Bungie's critically acclaimed extraction shooter Marathon hasn't matched Arc Raiders' player numbers.
So what's the secret to a successful live-service shooter launch in 2026? "That's what I want to know," Jang joked during our interview in Seoul. Krafton's mobile experiment PUBG Blindspot ended before leaving early access, announced around Battlegrounds' ninth anniversary. "As you can see, launching a live service is very difficult these days," Jang continued. "In the past, there were fewer live-service games entering the market one by one. Now it's harder to find a niche. But the core of the game must be fun. If you find fun factors that appeal to players, you can naturally find your niche in the live-service industry. Pursuing that effort to make a fun game with a unique selling point will lead to success."
It sounds straightforward, but many "fun" games have failed to build audiences recently, including WB's Multiversus, EA's Knockout City, and Square Enix's Marvel's Avengers. For every Arc Raiders, countless games struggle to find even a fraction of its success.
No release date has been announced yet, but we'll see how PUBG: Black Budget fares in the extraction shooter space and whether Krafton has rediscovered the live-service magic that made Battlegrounds such a phenomenon.
For more on PUBG, check out how the original battle royale aims to become a "global cultural icon" with Fortnite in its sights.
