PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds creator Krafton already has a couple of different projects in the works, and if recent job listings are any indication of what’s to come, one of those projects may be an open-world, sci-fi shooter. That supposed project is being called “Vertical” for the time being with quite a few job openings on the PUBG site referencing the project. How this game would fit into the PUBG universe is unknown, but there are theories about what it might be.
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The newest information on the Vertical game comes from PUBG leaker PlayerIGN who first took note of the job listings that opened up on the PUBG careers site. Within the category of jobs available in Seoul, several reference Vertical under different disciplines such as art and game design.
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PUBG’s working on an open-world sci-fi shooter game. The project’s codenamed: Vertical.It’s built on UE4, a pre-built engine, as such I can imagine them looking to release this game after 2-3 years.
Is this the PUBG2 game that was mentioned? If so, guess it’s not a BR. pic.twitter.com/XugVZ0203q
— PlayerIGN (@PlayerIGN) April 10, 2021
According to the translations above of some of the text from the job listings, the new Vertical project is indeed an expansion of the PUBG IP. That shouldn’t be too surprising for those who’ve been following along with Krafton’s latest projects seeing how all of them from PUBG: New State to the new horror game The Callisto Protocol are set in the same universe. PlayerIGN also noted that the new Vertical game is being made by PUBG Studio.
Some of the other details shared by the leaker hinted at different parts of the Vertical game and shaped a picture of something very different from the traditional PUBG experience players have gotten used to. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine PUBG going open-world and keeping its shooting systems intact, but sci-fi, mechs, monsters, robots, and villages were also referenced in the details about the game.
As for what this game might be and how it’ll fit into the bigger PUBG picture, there’s reason to believe that it would be something akin to a PUBG 2. It’s assumed something like that is coming, but Krafton hasn’t come out and declared any one of its projects to fit that mold yet. PUBG: New State is the closest we’ve come to that, but that game is only planned for mobile devices and is rather a follow-up to PUBG Mobile. It’d be quite the departure from the PUBG experience if that’s the case, but there’s always the chance it could simply be another game in the PUBG Studio’s catalog.
