PUBG Mobile is well known for its out-there collaborations, and the game’s booth at EWC 2026 is a testament to that. During my time at the tournament, I got to check out the Naruto and Steal a Brainrot collaboration gameplay and chat with the senior director of PUBG Mobile Esports, Oliver Ye.
Firstly, as the current collaborations in PUBG Mobile don’t necessarily match what you might expect from an FPS game, I asked Oliver how the team decides which crossovers will best suit the game’s player base. “I think it’s all about what the players want,” he told me. “We have been listening to our community very carefully, making sure that we understand what they want and what they need. We have to look at the pop culture on a very frequent basis, understanding what is trendy and what can be a very good fit with PUBG Mobile.” I must have made a face after this, as he continued, “Right, you would never imagine brainrot with an FPS.”
He’s right, of course. But I gave the Brainrot Royale game mode a go, and it’s a simple yet engaging loop of collecting brainrots by shooting them, taking them to your base, building your income, and stealing from other players. We’ve seen similar models in games like Roblox and Fortnite, but the shoot-to-collect mechanic feels very unique, and PUBG Mobile even has its own chicken-themed brainrot in the game. This contained tycoon game mode lives in World of Wonders, PUBG Mobile’s creator platform, but the majority of its collaborations cross over into the core battle royale format.
In our chat, Oliver was keen to highlight that a lot of thought goes into incorporating different IPs into PUBG Mobile, rather than just adding a couple of cosmetics. He told me that it’s about accessing “the soul or the core of that IP. So as a fan, I think they would love to feel that they are getting in touch with the IP they love on PUBG Mobile instead of just outfits.” The Naruto collaboration, for example, adds anime-themed areas to three of the game’s eight maps, justu scrolls to give you extra abilities, and the ninja’s iconic sprint – all aspects that you might find in a standalone Naruto game. However, the heart of the collaboration is the Nine-Tails, or Kurama, boss fight.
Oliver told me, “It’s built on a BR-based game mode, but it’s a PVE experience. We feel like Kurama is very popular among Naruto fans, and they would love to fight it, so we made it a boss so that anyone on the map has to work together to defeat it.” When I tested it out, it was really cool to see players switching from shooting at each other to teaming up against the Nine-Tails as soon as it spawned on the map. Oliver continued, “So this really makes us totally different from other titles because we are trying to bring an original experience and the IP to our games instead of just selling items.”
I asked how these collaborations allow PUBG Mobile to keep its gameplay fresh, and Oliver told me that it allows the team to continually add new elements and stop the player base from getting bored. However, the core battle royale game mode has to remain a priority, as that’s the basis of the PUBG Mobile Esports scene. Despite this, the competing esports teams actually play a role in the development of collaboration and WOW modes. Oliver said, “The pro players are part of our ‘hardcore player’ group. We have very good connections with players from different teams, so whenever we have a new game mode or a new element, we ask them to test for us. We listen to them and make sure that we are optimizing the games in the right way.”
PWMC is still underway as part of EWC 2026, so make sure to tune into the official livestreams to catch all the action. If you’ve never dropped in before, PUBG Mobile is one of the best free mobile games out there, so give it a go and let us know what you think in the Pocket Tactics Discord server.
