The Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF) announced Tuesday that Krafton’s’ popular mobile battle royale game PUBG Mobile will be a competitive title at the inaugural Esports Nations Cup 2026 (ENC), set to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in November.
PUBG Mobile joins the other previously announced titles that will be part of ENC this year, including League of Legends, Rocket League, Valorant, Apex Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Rainbow Six Siege, EA Sports FC 26, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Chess, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Trackmania, and Honor of Kings. A total of 16 titles will be played at the nation vs. nation competition. Two titles are still to be announced.
The ENC 2026 PUBG MOBILE tournament will run from Nov. 3 – 8 and feature 32 teams competing in a round-robin group stage featuring four groups of eight teams.
- Thirty-Two (32) teams will compete at ENC 2026.
- Sixteen (16) teams will receive direct invitations; the top 12 teams will be directly invited based on the PUBG MOBILE National Team Ranking and four teams will receive “special invites.”
- Sixteen (16) teams will be required to qualify; 14 teams will qualify through regional qualifiers and two teams will come from Wildcard slots.
More on the new ranking system:
“The Esports Nations Cup will determine its direct invites via the PUBG MOBILE National Team Ranking, which will take into account the 2025 PUBG MOBILE World Cup and Global Championship, as well as the 2026 PUBG MOBILE Global Open, awarding points to Clubs, with those points equally shared across all Club teammates who participated. The national ranking will then accumulate the points of the top four players on the submitted national roster. The cut-off date for PUBG MOBILE National Team Ranking is June 7, 2026.”
Regional qualifiers will take place July 10-12. Qualifiers will be double-elimination brackets, hosted in each of the following regions:
- North + Central America (2 slots)
- South America (1)
- Europe West (2)
- EECA (2)
- MENA (2)
- Central + Southern Africa (2)
- East + South Asia (1)
- SEA + Oceania (2)
The ENC is set to take place Nov. 2 – 29, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The competition is being produced by the EWCF, which is funded through a so-called “sports grant” by the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, the PIF.
Projects backed by the Saudi government are often accused of being used for “sports washing,” or as a cover for the government to gloss over its record on human rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, its mistreatment (and executions of) journalists, military actions in Yemen, and more. These and other criticisms have been highlighted by international watchdog groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.