PUBG: Blindspot to Close Its Doors Just Two Months After Launch

Two years after its debut, Firewalk Studios’ hero shooter, Concord, has not become the premium alternative to Overwatch and Valorant that the developers likely envisioned. Instead, it has become a benchmark for measuring failures in live-service games.

On Thursday, ARC Team and PUBG Studios announced that their top-down 5v5 tactical shooter, PUBG: Blindspot, will be shutting down on March 30. This game will have lasted 40 days longer than Concord’s disappointing 14-day lifespan, barely outlasting Highguard, another recent live-service flop that lasted just 31 days longer than Concord before its closure.

PUBG: Blindspot entered early access on February 4. According to a statement from Krafton, the aim of this early access phase was for the development team to collaborate with players to refine gameplay and expand content ahead of the full release. They committed to using player feedback to enhance depth, balance, and overall quality, and they did deliver regular updates in response to community input. However, it appears that the player base was insufficient for the game to thrive. One of the most common criticisms in PUBG: Blindspot’s Steam reviews was the long wait times for matches, attributed to a consistently low number of concurrent players.

In the announcement regarding the game’s closure, ARC Team’s Sequoia Yang stated, “…after careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that we are no longer able to sustainably provide the level of experience we set out to deliver through Early Access. We place player experience at the center of every decision we make, and it is based on that principle that we have made this decision.”

This news comes as Krafton aims to transform into an “AI-first” gaming company, backed by a $69 billion investment in the technology. Additionally, a judge recently ordered Krafton to reinstate Ted Gill, the head of the Subnautica 2 studio, after determining that the company had improperly terminated him in 2025. Clearly, things are not going smoothly over there.