PUBG, Krafton’s multiplayer battle royale game and rival to Warzone and Fortnite, will be banned in Afghanistan in the next 90 days as the Taliban rules it leads young people astray and is likely to promote violence.
In April, Inamullah Samangani, a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, tweeted that the “game PUBG…causes the young generation to go astray”, and that internet servers across the country would be ordered to ban access to the battle royale alongside popular mobile app, Tiktok. No time frame was originally given for the ban, but now, according to Khaama Press, the Taliban has reportedly mandated that PUBG will be made inaccessible in Afghanistan within the next 90 days.
According to South Asia Index, a news service reporting from areas including Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Taliban is banning PUBG as it is responsible for “promoting violence”. PUBG has previously been banned in China, India, and Jordan, with governments specifically targeting the game’s mobile version. The Taliban has banned over 23 million websites across Afghanistan for promoting what it considers “immoral content”.
PUBG maintains a keen playerbase, with a peak number of 448,000 concurrent users during the past 30 days. Its latest update has made changes to the Deston map, as well as adding new vehicles, animations, and weather dynamics. Its central rivals in the battle royale genre, Fortnite and Warzone, are about to receive major overhauls in the form of Fortnite chapter 3 season 4 and the launch of Warzone 2.0.
Check out our guide to the best FPS games, or perhaps the best multiplayer games. You might also want to look into our PUBG tips and tricks to help get ahead of the curve and consistently bag one of those precious chicken dinners.