Within the next 90 days, the Taliban will be banning users from playing PUBG: Battlegrounds in Afghanistan. The decision is reportedly due to the game "promoting violence" amongst the younger generation, and also comes alongside a ban of the popular video application, TikTok.
The news was reported by The Khaama Press (via PCGamesN), which reported earlier this week that the Taliban "is going to ban TikTok and PUBG applications in Afghanistan within the next 3 months", as announced by the Ministry of Telecommunication.
This isn't the first time PUBG: Battlegrounds has been banned in a certain country, earlier this year the popular Battle Royale title was banned in India for the second time. Originally banned in 2020 due to heightened tensions between India and China, the government once again banned the title due to "national security concerns". The decision was related to the fact that PUBG's developers, Krafton, are partially owned by Chinese conglomerate, Tencent.
PUBG's removal in Afghanistan likely won't come as much of a surprise to those within the country, as a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan tweeted back in April that PUBG "causes the young generation to go astray". Along with TikTok, the spokesperson stated that "The Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology is obliged to block the game PUBG". PUBG's developers are yet to release an official statement regarding the banning of their Battle Royale title in Afghanistan.
PUBG recently teamed up with Ubisoft to bring players a special Assassin's Creed crossover, featuring an exclusive Ezio skin, new emotes, gun charms, and more. The collaboration even allowed PUBG players to use a special "leap of faith" jump from the top of buildings, something that has become iconic within the Assassin's Creed franchise.
Along with the game's recent 19.2 patch update, PUBG continues to be one of the most successful Battle Royale titles around. According to the official Steam charts, the game's peak player count reached almost 450,000 players within the last 30 days, which doesn't take into account the console player base.