PUBG: Black Budget has no release date. It is unreleased, and the Steam listing shows “To be announced.” KRAFTON has run three closed tests — December 2025, April 2026 and June 2026 — without ever attaching a launch window, a price, or an early-access plan to any of them. Anyone publishing a specific date today is guessing, and the sections below show exactly how much is actually on the record.
- Release date
- To be announced
- Release status
- Unreleased
- Confirmed platform
- PC (Windows 11) via Steam
- Developer
- PUBG Studios
- Publisher
- KRAFTON, Inc.
- Price
- Not announced
- Business model
- Not announced
- Console versions
- Not announced
- Early access plans
- Not announced
- Closed tests run so far
- 3
What is officially confirmed?
Two things, and only two. The game exists and is in active development at PUBG Studios, evidenced by a live Steam listing and three completed closed tests. And the release date is unannounced — unreleased — release date to be announced.
Everything else about timing is absent from official material. No launch window, no season or quarter, no “coming 2027” placeholder on the store page. KRAFTON has not committed to a business model either, which matters more than it might seem: a premium release and a free-to-play release usually follow different testing and marketing runways, so not knowing which one this is removes the last basis for a confident guess.
Source: Steam store page · verified 2026-07-28
What the testing schedule actually tells us
The tests are the only real signal, so here is the full record rather than a summary of it.
- Closed Alpha Test 1
- December 12–14 and December 19–21, 2025 (two 3-day windows) · North America, Europe, East Asia · No NDA
- EU Closed Test
- April 22–24, 2026 (17:00–23:00 CEST daily) · Europe · Under NDA
- Closed Alpha Test 2
- Friday June 26 – Monday June 29, 2026 · North America, Europe, East Asia · No NDA
Read as a sequence: reveal in November 2025, first alpha weeks later, a small NDA-bound regional test in spring, then a larger NDA-free alpha in summer. That is a project moving forward at a steady pace, not one circling a launch. The June 2026 test also wiped all inventories, character levels and currency when it closed, which is standard for a build that is still changing underneath the player.
What it does not tell us is a date. Games at this stage have shipped the following year and games at this stage have taken three more. The honest inference stops at “not imminent”. Full detail on playtest history.
Why do other sites list a release date?
Because a date attracts clicks and “unannounced” does not. The dates circulating fall into three groups, none of which are evidence.
Placeholder dates from storefronts. Retail and aggregator pages frequently auto-fill December 31 of the current or next year when a publisher supplies no date. It is a database default, not an announcement.
Inference dressed as reporting. “Expected 2027” framed to read like a report when it is one writer's estimate. Sometimes reasonable, still not a source.
Fabrication. Fake countdowns, invented preorder pages, and key sellers claiming access to a game that has no purchasable version. Nobody can sell you a Black Budget key, because none exist outside of KRAFTON's own test invitations.
The test: a real release date arrives from KRAFTON or the Steam store page. If a claim cannot be traced to one of those, it is not news.
When will the release date be announced?
Unknown. Publishers typically announce dates at a marketing beat — a showcase, a trailer, the start of preorders — rather than in isolation, so a date reveal is more likely to arrive attached to an event than on a quiet Tuesday. That is an industry pattern, not information about this game specifically.
The reliable places to watch are the official announcement feed and the Steam store page itself. When the listing changes, this page changes with it, and the previous state is logged in corrections rather than quietly overwritten.
Can I play PUBG: Black Budget before release?
Only during a closed test, and none is running right now. Access has come exclusively through Steam's Request Access flow, with KRAFTON selecting participants — it has never been first-come or purchasable. The June 2026 alpha additionally let accepted players invite up to two Steam friends of at least 30 days' standing, so an invitation from someone already in is a genuine route when a test is live.
See how to join a playtest for the full process, and platforms and requirements to check whether your PC clears the current specification.
How this page is maintained
This page is reviewed against the Steam listing and KRAFTON's announcement feed, and updated when either changes. It will not carry a predicted date, a countdown, or a “leaked” window — not because those are uninteresting, but because publishing one would make every other claim on this site harder to trust.
For the complete list of what is confirmed and what is still unknown, see everything currently confirmed, or what is PUBG: Black Budget if you are new to the game.