How PUBG's Global Partner Teams and the 2026 PGS circuit work

Every event of the PUBG Global Series starts with the same question: who gets to play? In PUBG: Battlegrounds, the battle royale published by Krafton, the answer is split down the middle. Half of the 24 places in each event belong to teams the publisher has chosen as partners for the whole year. The other half belong to teams that earned or were offered their way in through the competitions of their own region. That split shapes everything else in the season, from how a team plans its budget to which squads reach the world championship in December.

The 2026 season, which opens in Seoul in March, also changes how the international events themselves are built. The PUBG Global Series, known as PGS, no longer runs as a handful of separate tournaments. It is grouped into four circuits of three linked events each, with results carried from one week to the next. This guide explains how the Global Partner Team program came about and how Krafton chooses its members, what a partner place brings, how a circuit is played stage by stage, how PGS Points lead to the PUBG Global Championship, and how the system compares with the one used in 2025.

PUBG Esports season roadmap of February 9, 2026, and Circuit 1 announcement of March 3, 2026.

Twenty-four places, split in two

A battle royale is a genre in which many squads drop onto the same map and the last one alive wins the match. In competition, a day is made of several such matches, and teams score points for where they finish in each one and for every opponent they eliminate. The PGS is Krafton's international series of these events, and each of them has 24 teams.

According to the roadmap Krafton published on February 9, 2026, those 24 places are divided into two groups of twelve. Twelve go to the Global Partner Teams, who are guaranteed entry to every series of the year. Twelve go to what the publisher calls Regional Series Qualifiers, teams that come from the regional competitions Krafton runs or licenses around the world.

The twelve partners chosen for 2026, announced on February 11, are 17 Gaming, 4AM, Anyone's Legend, DN SOOPers, eArena, FULL SENSE, Gen.G Esports, Natus Vincere, Petrichor Road, Team Falcons, Twisted Minds and Virtus.pro. Krafton's list of February 13 sorts them by region, and the spread is uneven.

EMEA is the region Krafton uses for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The region a partner is listed under matters less for the PGS itself, where all 24 teams play in one field, than for the championship at the end of the year, where most places are shared out region by region.

Where the partner program comes from

The program is not new. When Krafton opened applications for 2025, on December 1, 2024, it said the partner teams of the program had excelled in PUBG Esports tournaments and contributed feedback to improve the game itself. The same page said that the 2025 program would be its third edition, and that ten Global Partner Teams had taken part in 2024, receiving direct seeds to the PUBG Global Series and exclusive team-branded items.

The 2025 list, announced on February 21, 2025, again held ten teams: 17Gaming, DN Freecs, eArena, Four Angry Men, Gen.G, Natus Vincere, Petrichor Road, Team Falcons, The Expendables and Twisted Minds. In 2025 the PGS ran as four rounds, each with 24 teams: the ten partners and 14 regional qualifiers, according to Krafton's points notice of February 28, 2025.

For 2026 the program grew to twelve teams, which shifts the balance of each PGS field. With 24 places in both years, two more partners mean two fewer places for teams coming through the regions: twelve against fourteen a year earlier. Krafton's 2026 announcement describes the arrangement as a long-term partnership meant to grow over several seasons, but it states no fixed term for an individual team's place.

How Krafton chooses its partners

Teams apply. For the 2025 cycle, Krafton accepted applications until January 10, 2025, at 23:59 Korean time, and said it welcomed every interested team, including its existing partners. Shortlisted teams then went through an internal evaluation and an in-depth interview before the list was published.

The 2025 application page set out three criteria, the same as the year before, without weights or scores. Governance covered a team's overall financial stability and its long-term commitment to the PUBG Esports ecosystem. Fandom covered its value and presence for the game's global and local audiences. History covered the team's and its players' record in PUBG Esports, including past participation and the general health of the player and coaching staffs. When the 2025 list came out, Krafton said its evaluation committee had assessed the applications against those announced criteria.

The list therefore changes from one year to the next. Comparing the 2025 and 2026 announcements, Anyone's Legend, FULL SENSE and Virtus.pro are new partners, DN SOOPers appears where DN Freecs stood, and The Expendables, a partner in 2025, is not on the 2026 list. It still plays the first half of the 2026 PGS as one of the two invited teams of the PUBG Vietnam Series.

What a partner place is worth

Krafton's 2026 announcement lists three benefits. The first is guaranteed entry to every PGS series of the year: four Global Circuits, twelve series in all. The second is the release of exclusive Team Edition skins, the cosmetic items sold in the game in a team's colors, with the revenue shared between Krafton and the team. The share is not published. The third is annual support funding, which the announcement says is meant to help teams prepare for the season with stability.

The roadmap of February 9 puts a figure on the support: a line reading partner team annual support, US$1,000,000. It does not say whether that amount is paid to each partner or shared among the twelve. Esports Insider, reporting on the roadmap the same day, wrote that partnered teams would receive over US$1 million in annual support. The roadmap adds that these support structures are not one-time policies limited to 2026, and presents them as a foundation for keeping the PUBG Esports ecosystem going over the coming years.

The guaranteed entry is the benefit with the clearest effect on results. A partner plays all twelve series whatever happens in any one of them, so it has twelve chances to collect PGS Points toward the championship. A team outside the program first has to secure its place in the PGS through its region, and its number of chances depends on how many series it is admitted to.

Krafton states no obligations for partners in its 2026 announcement. The 2025 application page noted that the 2024 partners had contributed feedback to improve the game.

Inside a circuit: three weeks, one champion

The 2026 season is the first played in circuits. Krafton's roadmap describes each circuit as a three-week mini-season: Series 1 in the first week, Series 2 in the second and the Series Final in the third, with early results carried forward to the final week. According to Esports Insider's account of the roadmap, the four circuits fall in March, May, August and October.

The first circuit shows how it works in detail. Krafton's announcement of March 3, 2026 sets it in Seongsu, Seoul, without a live audience. Series 1 runs from March 18 to 22, Series 2 from March 26 to 29 and the Series Final from April 2 to 5, with matches starting at 19:00 Korean time. The four maps in rotation are Erangel, Miramar, Taego and Rondo, on the build of patch 40.

In Series 1, the Group Stage sorts the field: the top 16 move to the Winners Stage and the bottom 8 drop to the Survival Stage. The Winners Stage is five matches. Its top eight go directly to the Final Stage, while its bottom eight join the Survival Stage, which then holds 16 teams. That stage is also five matches; its top eight reach the Final Stage and the other eight are out. The Final Stage, ten matches over the weekend, sets the standings of the series.

Advantage Points and the Series Final

One detail rewards the teams that win the fast lane. In Series 1 and Series 2, the eight teams that come out of the Winners Stage carry Advantage Points into the Final Stage, added to their score there. Krafton's scale gives 10 points to the first of the Winners Stage, 6 to the second, 5 to the third, 4 to the fourth, 3 to the fifth, 2 to the sixth and 1 each to the seventh and eighth. Teams that reach the Final Stage through the Survival Stage start from zero.

Krafton calls the whole arrangement a progressive stage system in which each series' results carry into the next. Series 2 has no Group Stage because the seeding comes straight from Series 1. The Series Final goes one step further and seeds from the combined results of the first two weeks. The best eight over both series are spared the Survival Stage and wait in the Grand Finals, while the other sixteen play one more five-match day for the remaining eight places.

The prize money follows the same weighting toward the final week. The roadmap gives US$100,000 for Series 1, US$100,000 for Series 2 and US$300,000 for the Series Final. Krafton's Circuit 1 announcement confirms that this makes US$500,000 for the circuit, and that the four circuits share US$2,000,000 across the twelve series of 2026.

PGS Points and the road to the championship

Every 2026 series also awards PGS Points, the currency that leads to the PUBG Global Championship, or PGC, the event that decides the world title in December. According to the Circuit 1 announcement, points go to the top 16 teams of each series, and teams placed 17th to 24th receive none. Series 1 and Series 2 award the same points, with 30 for first place. The Series Final awards double, with 60 for first place. Krafton adds that the series of Circuits 3 and 4 will award more points than those of the first half.

The annual PGS Points standings then decide the first group of championship places. The top eight teams in that table at the end of the season earn a direct place at the PGC. The roadmap gives the championship 32 teams in all: those eight, plus the top 24 teams from the Regional Series of the year, allocated by region. A structure of tiered seeding and stages then sends 16 teams to the Grand Final. When the roadmap was published, Krafton said the details of the regional points system would follow.

This is where the partner program and the regional system meet. A partner can reach the PGC through its PGS Points, earned over twelve guaranteed series, or through the points of its own region. A team outside the program can reach it through its region, or through the PGS Points it collects in the series it is admitted to. Krafton's announcement of the partners says it in one line: "Of course, the 2026 season isn't structured for Partner Teams alone to compete on the global stage."

How the other twelve places are filled

For the first half of 2026, the twelve non-partner places in the PGS were filled by invitation. Krafton's post of February 13 names two teams from each of six regional competitions, who play both Circuit 1 and Circuit 2. The PUBG Americas Series sent FURIA and Team Liquid. China's PUBG Champions League sent Change The Game and JD Gaming. The PUBG EMEA Championship sent S2G Esports and Team Vitality. The PUBG Thailand Series sent Made in Thailand and Theerathon Five. The PUBG Vietnam Series sent FINHAY CERBERUS and The Expendables, and Korea's PUBG Weekly Series sent Crazy Raccoon and T1. The post gives no criteria for those invitations.

The second half works on results. The roadmap says that second-half selections will be based primarily on performance in the Regional Series of the first half. For two regions, Krafton has already written the rule down. Its format guide of February 19 for the PUBG EMEA Championship and the PUBG Americas Series says that the top-performing teams of their first editions, called PEC: Spring and PAS1, are invited to all PGS events of the second half of 2026.

Those regional seasons start from open play. The roadmap describes a pyramid in which scrims, organized practice matches open to new teams and players, lead to Regional Cups, then to the Regional Series, the PGS and finally the PGC. Esports Insider reports that scrims and Regional Cups run from February to October, and the roadmap gives the Regional Cups about US$130,000 in prize pools in total. In Europe and the Americas, the season opened on March 2 with weeks of elimination scrims leading to a Saturday Cup for the best 16 teams, then Playoffs and three-day Finals. The format guide adds that regional tournaments remain the main way to earn the PGC Points that fill most of the championship's places.

What changed from 2025

Set side by side, the two seasons show a system that keeps its size but changes its rhythm. The number of teams per event stays at 24 and the PGS Points standings still send eight teams to the championship. What changes is the number of international series, the share of places reserved for partners and the size of the final field.

The 2025 championship gives a sense of what the PGS Points were feeding. Held in Bangkok from November 28 to December 14, 2025, with a prize pool of US$1,500,000 plus crowdfunding through the Pick'em Challenge, it brought 33 teams together. Thirty-two of them started in two groups. The top five of each group went directly to the Grand Finals, the middle eight of each went to a Last Stage, and the bottom three of each were out. The Last Stage sent five more teams to the Grand Finals, where they were joined by one regional wild card for a final field of 16. The points notice of 2025 also counted the Esports World Cup in the PGS point system that year.

The 2026 championship keeps the final field of 16 but drops to 32 teams. The roadmap does not yet describe its stages beyond the tiered seeding, nor does it name a host city.

The 2026 calendar around the circuit

The circuits sit inside a longer season. According to the roadmap, Krafton plans more than nine months of nearly continuous competition, from March to the PGC in December. Circuit 1 runs from March into early April and Regional Series 1 follows in April; Circuit 2 comes in May, according to Esports Insider's account of the roadmap. Those first two circuits, PGS 1 to 6, make up the first half of the season.

June belongs to the PUBG Nations Cup, in which players represent their country instead of their organization. The Esports World Cup, which Esports Insider places in Riyadh, follows in July. The roadmap says first-half PGS and Regional Series results factor into qualification for it. Regional Series 2 is set for September, between Circuit 3 in August and Circuit 4 in October as Esports Insider lists them, before the championship closes the year in December.

Around the matches, the roadmap lists a revamped Pick'em Challenge, a new in-game fantasy league and a new Esports Pass, along with work to bring the game's Ranked Mode closer to competitive settings and to synchronize patches with the esports calendar.

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