Words: Kate Harrold
Having partially been inspired by films Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, it feels like a full-circle move that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is now making its own way onto non-gaming screens.
Frustrated by the predictability of most multiplayer shooter maps, game creator Brendan Greene developed the large-scale and varying locales of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in response. As such, you can't be blamed for thinking that the game is perfectly suited for a big-budget adaption à la HBO's The Last of Us - but that's not actually the plan.
The game's new publishers in India, Krafton, have set their sights on an anime adaptation with Castlevania showrunner and producer Adi Shankar taking the helm. The move follows in the footsteps of other recent game-to-anime adaptations including Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and The Witcher. In fact, Shankar is no stranger to the process himself, having been linked to adaptations of Assassin's Creed, Devil May Cry and Hyper Light Drifter - as well as the recently revealed Netflix project Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, based on the Far Cry 3 DLC.
Here's the trailer to 2021's fourth season of Castlevania, streaming on Netflix now
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"I'm grateful to Krafton for the trust and confidence they've placed in me to execute my vision as a filmmaker and I'm excited to embark on this journey together," Shankar said in a statement. "To me, this animated project represents another step in the evolution of mending the torched bridge between the games industry and Hollywood. I look forward to revealing to everybody what winning a chicken dinner looks like."
It's a promising start for fans of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds as Shankar's Castlevania became one of Netflix's most successful animated shows, garnering 30,000,000 viewers during its second season.
No streaming service or network has yet been linked to the PUBG project, but it's interesting to note that Netflix have already collaborated with Shankar several times, so they clearly have confidence in the producer - as do we. In a statement, Krafton CEO CH Kim teased that more information would be shared in the "near future".
Having claimed that he's been "crushing the competition" since 2017, let us all hope that Shankar's winning attitude awards us with another first-class performance in bringing PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds to our screens.
Topics: Netflix, TV, Retro Gaming
