In weeks five and six of the Esports World Cup (EWC) in Paris, the PMWC returned to uncover the greatest PUBG Mobile team on a global stage. I got the chance to attend, and the atmosphere in the arena was electric. You can really see why PUBG Mobile has been the most-watched battle royale esports title for the past five years.
At the event, I was able to sit down with Oliver Ye, the senior director of PUBG Mobile Global Esports, to chat about the battle royale game's growth, the development of mobile esports, and growing competition in the marketplace. Firstly, I asked how the game's nature as a mobile title has helped it to grow and engage a global esports audience over the past eight years, and he told me that it essentially all comes down to portability.
"We are built on mobile, and this is what makes PUBG Mobile so special. You can carry a phone anywhere, so it brings us a lot of opportunity to get in touch with players anytime, anywhere." Oliver says the same goes for fans as well as players, as they can easily tune into the esports matches and then jump into a game themselves. He continued, "This is also very fundamental for PUBG Mobile because we have to keep investing and optimizing our performance, so that anyone in the world can play our games."
Given that PUBG Mobile's biggest communities are based in Southeast Asia, India, and Pakistan, where mobile gaming is huge, and there's a massive market for budget gaming phones, it makes sense that the devs need to keep the game optimized to run on these devices. However, Oliver told me that "it's not only the performance of the phone, but also the performance of the network."
He told me that, after hearing the story of 4Thrives, a Pakistani esports team that competed at PMWC, he thinks developers "need to understand what type of environment that [players] are playing our game in." According to Oliver, "[4Thrives] told us that they have four players living in different cities. So, sometimes they have to wait for the electricity to come back and to find a great spot that has a great signal so that they can practice together."
While huge events in PUBG Mobile's esports calendar are instrumental in creating hype and bringing in new fans, the PMWC is also a part of the EWC tournament. I wanted to know how this partnership benefited the game's esports scene, and Oliver explained that it has many advantages. "I would say that this gave us an opportunity to step onto a bigger global stage," he told me. "We are happy to see many other players and organizations join together. This also offers an opportunity to learn from different games and titles."
That being said, PUBG Mobile has its own positives to offer EWC in return. Oliver told me, "Being the most participated-in mobile esport, I think PUBG Mobile also helps the whole EWC to get in touch with our huge communities and follower base. So I think this is a definite win-win." In previous years, Saudi Arabia has hosted EWC, but this year it took place in Paris, bringing the PUBG Mobile esports action right into the heart of Europe.
The game hosts events in Europe as part of its esports offering, but it's much smaller in the region than in East Asia, MENA, and South America. Being part of a large esports competition in Europe helped the PUBG Mobile Esports team to get "some new ideas of what the players here want," while scoping out the desire for competition across the continent. Oliver said, "They're happy to see that PUBG Mobile is here. So I think definitely we'll be here more."
The PUBG Mobile Esports team is really keen to get the game in front of as many eyes as possible, and this also ties into why the game is participating in the first-ever Esports Nations Cup. Sadly, the Esports Foundation recently decided to postpone the inaugural tournament until November 2027 "following ongoing assessment of the wider regional situation, and after consultation with key stakeholders." If this year's registration carries over to the postponed event, PUBG Mobile currently has the most countries registered for the ENC, and Oliver thinks, "It will be interesting to see these pro players forming a new team to fight for national pride."
As esports continues to take root as a household phenomenon, we're seeing more and more mobile titles launch into the space, either with their own competition systems or as part of wider events like the EWC. I asked Oliver about his thoughts on the scene's growth, and the challenges it presents for PUBG Mobile. He said, "I would say we are happy to see more players joining together in these markets, because it also gives us more confidence that the market is still growing. But we need to work pretty hard to make sure that we stand out, right? So I think the most important factor that makes PUBG Mobile different is that we are not only focusing on these very serious tournaments, but we are offering more opportunities for anyone to join."
Related to these opportunities, the PUBG Mobile Esports team has placed significant effort and resources into growing the game's grassroots tournament scene, and it's clear that Oliver is proud of this. The 2026 PUBG Mobile Global Open broke a Guinness World Record with its registration numbers, and when I asked Oliver if he expected this, he simply told me, "Of course! We always want to aim high."
"Right now we are focusing on trying to lower the barrier, making sure that anyone from the world can be part of our esports ecosystem," he continued. "So this year, we have launched an in-game tournament system so that anyone from any country can be part of our PUBG Mobile Global Open, and they can find their way to the finals. So I think [breaking the world record] has shown that we are doing great. We think this is the right direction."
Through a combination of in-game tournaments leading to the PMGO, national championships worldwide, and third-party tournaments in partnership with phone brands and telecom companies, PUBG Mobile is giving its players as many opportunities as possible to rise to the top. "We tend to see that our players are from anywhere, everywhere, and the grassroots tournaments can help us to discover new players," Oliver explained. "They want to be seen. They want to be part of the ecosystem, but maybe in the past they didn't have any chance. We are trying to work together with different stakeholders to make sure that we have ecosystems to support anyone who wants to become a superstar."
If you've never watched a game of PUBG Mobile Esports before, I encourage you to change that. The players are all unbelievably talented, and the gameplay is truly gripping. It's even better if you get to see it at an event like the EWC. I got to briefly chat with the winners of the PUBG Mobile PMWC 2026 and go deeper into PUBG Mobile's Naruto collaboration with Oliver while at the event, so check out those pieces next.