Before Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Warzone took over the battle royale genre, PUBG, or PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds was the game that popularized this style of play, with many a gamer agreeing that it’s the shooter that brought battle royale genre to the mainstream and still gets updates today, even if it does lack the same impact as its more popular competitors these days.
While PUBG is incredibly popular, the game also managed to attract some controversy, and that’s not just because it’s your usual battle royale game with events and in-game currency. The games mobile version, appropriately named 'PUBG Mobile' is actually banned in a number of countries, which is genuinely shocking to see it’s just a video game but different cultures have different policies and it seems like this title was too much for them.
Which countries have banned PUBG Mobile as of March 2021
India banned PUBG Mobile, citing it as one of the 118 apps that are a threat to the country. Officially India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said at the time:
"In view of the emergent nature of threats has decided to block 118 mobile apps since in view of information available they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state, and public order."
An Indian version of PUBG was announced to soothe things over, though that has not been given a release date yet.
PUBG Mobile was also banned in Afghanistan in December 2020, due to its violent nature, along with social and security considerations.
Oddly enough, PUBG Mobile is also banned in China, despite the fact that the game is owned by Chinese gaming company Tencent Games, though the amount of violence was too much for the country.
The battle royale game also got banned in Pakistan for being too addictive, which affected the health of children there.
PUBG Mobile is still available in a number of countries at the time of writing.