Krafton names 16 PUBG: Battlegrounds Regional Partner Teams for 2026

Sixteen teams now know they will not have to come through the open qualifiers of PUBG: Battlegrounds in Europe and the Americas this spring. On February 27, 2026, Krafton, the game's publisher, named its Regional Partner Teams for 2026 on its PUBG Esports news page: eight for the PUBG EMEA Championship and eight for the PUBG Americas Series. Each of them goes straight to the Playoffs of its regional competition.

The list arrives days before the season starts. Both competitions open on Monday, March 2, with five weeks of Scrims and Cups that are open to any team. The partners do not need to play through it. The other teams of each region play it for the right to meet them in the Playoffs weeks of April and May.

PUBG Esports, Regional Partner Teams Announcement, February 27, 2026, and first-half PGS participating teams, February 13, 2026.

Who the sixteen partners are

In EMEA, the region Krafton uses for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the eight partners are Acend, Bushido Wildcats, NAVI, S2G Esports, S8UL, Twisted Minds, Virtus.pro and Vitality. In the Americas, they are +55 Esports, Bestia, Copenhagen Wolves, FURIA, ROC Esports, Team Falcons, Team Liquid and Toyo.

Krafton describes the program as a platform for the teams and rosters it considers the most storied and influential in each region. Its announcement does not explain how the sixteen were chosen, and it publishes no criteria, scores or reasons team by team. It lists two benefits. The first is closer collaboration with Krafton itself, which the announcement does not detail. The second is concrete: "In addition, Regional Partner Teams receive a direct invite to the Playoffs stage of their respective regional tournament."

The announcement says nothing about money. It gives no support funding, prize money or revenue share for regional partners, and it does not say how long a team keeps its place.

Two regions on one new format

The partners are part of a format Krafton set out on February 19. That day, its PUBG Esports news page published a format guide for the PUBG EMEA Championship, known as PEC, and the PUBG Americas Series, known as PAS. Both now follow the same three stages: Scrims and Cups, then Playoffs, then Finals, over more than ten weeks from March 2. The Playoffs and the Finals are each played twice.

PUBG: Battlegrounds is a battle royale, a genre in which many squads drop onto the same map and the last one standing wins the match. A competitive day is a series of matches, with points for placement and for every elimination. In the new regional format, each match day holds five matches, one fewer than the six-match days of 2025, but there are more match days over the season, Krafton's guide says.

The first stage is open. Each week starts with three days of scrims, organized practice matches against other teams, played as an elimination bracket. The best 16 teams of the week move on to a one-day Cup of five matches on Saturday. Over five weeks, the Cups build an overall leaderboard. According to the format guide, the top 19 teams of that leaderboard reach the Playoffs, along with the winners of the fourth and the fifth Cups. Esports Insider, reporting the format on February 23, described the same two routes.

The announcement of February 27 names who waits for those teams. Teams qualify through the Scrims and Cups of PEC and PAS to face the Regional Partner Teams in the Playoffs weeks, Krafton writes. The format guide had already said that the best Cups teams would meet invited teams from the region at that stage. Scrims remain open throughout: a team can register for any week of Scrims until one day before that week begins.

How the Playoffs treat a partner

The Playoffs are where a direct invitation pays off. They are held twice, on April 17 to 19 and again on May 1 to 3, according to Esports Insider, and the second Playoffs feature the same teams as the first, Krafton's guide says. Each is a three-day weekend built around a cut-off line on the daily leaderboard. A team that finishes above the line on any single day qualifies for the Finals. A team that does not keeps no points: scores reset the next day.

Seeding comes from the Cups. Teams that have qualified are replaced by teams ranked below them on the Cups leaderboard, and the line rises each day. Krafton gives two examples. A team third on the Cups leaderboard starts on the first day and has three chances to qualify. A team 18th starts on the third day and has one.

Invited teams are the exception to that seeding, the guide says: their place does not come from the Cups leaderboard. What the partner invitation covers, in the words of the announcement, is the Playoffs stage. A place in the Finals is decided in the Playoffs, by the daily cut-off.

The Finals then keep the classic three-day format, in which every placement and elimination point counts across the weekend and the team with the most points wins.

Regional partners and global partners

Krafton now runs two partner programs, and they work at different levels. On February 11, it named twelve Global Partner Teams for the PUBG Global Series, or PGS, its international circuit. The Esports Advocate reported the same day that those teams receive guaranteed entry to every PGS series of the season, including four Global Circuits, exclusive team-edition skins in the game with revenue sharing, and annual support funding. A regional partner place guarantees one thing: entry to the Playoffs of its own region.

The two lists overlap. Four of the twelve global partners are also regional partners. Natus Vincere, which the regional list writes as NAVI, Twisted Minds and Virtus.pro are global partners for EMEA, and Team Falcons is the global partner for the Americas, according to Krafton's first-half PGS team list of February 13. All four are also on the regional lists.

The same February 13 list named the teams invited to the first half of the PGS from each regional competition. The PUBG EMEA Championship sent S2G Esports and Team Vitality, and the PUBG Americas Series sent FURIA and Team Liquid. All four are regional partners too.

That first half of the PGS covers two circuits, Circuit 1 with PGS 1 to 3 and Circuit 2 with PGS 4 to 6, and Krafton's list says more details on the rest of the series will follow. The global partners are spread unevenly: three for China, three for EMEA, two each for Korea and Thailand, and one each for the Americas and Vietnam. The Americas therefore count a single global partner against eight regional ones. The Esports Advocate's report on the global program noted that teams outside it keep a way in, since Krafton says strong Regional Series results will open opportunities to join the PGS.

Counted together, eight of the sixteen regional partners are already in the first-half PGS field: five of the eight in EMEA and three of the eight in the Americas. The other eight, from Acend to Toyo, start the year at regional level.

What the regional season is worth

For the eight partners outside the first-half PGS field, the regional season is the way up. Krafton's format guide says that the top-performing teams of the first editions of 2026, called PEC: Spring and PAS1, are invited to all PGS events of the second half of the year. Esports Insider reported that the first of them, PGS 2026 Circuit 3, Series 1, is set for August with a prize pool of US$100,000 per tournament. Neither source fixes how many teams each region will send.

The regional events also award PGC Points, the points that lead to the PUBG Global Championship, the event that decides the world title. Krafton calls regional tournaments the main way to earn them. Qualifying for the Finals through the Playoffs is worth a small number of points, more for a team that qualifies earlier, and a strong Finals result is what secures a place at the championship, the guide says. The same point values apply to the first and the second Playoffs and Finals. Esports Insider describes the championship as gathering the top 32 teams of the PUBG esports ecosystem.

What comes next

The first week of Scrims starts on Monday, March 2, in both regions, and the first Cup follows on the Saturday. Everything except the first two days of Scrims each week is broadcast, Esports Insider reported. After five Cups, the qualified teams join the sixteen partners for the first Playoffs weekend on April 17, with the second on May 1. The Finals of PEC: Spring and PAS1 then decide the first regional champions of 2026 and which teams from the two regions are invited to the PGS circuit in August.

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