PUBG: Black Budget – Early Alpha Impressions

A PUBG Extraction Shooter That Wants You To Creep, Not Sprint

PUBG: Black Budget arrives in closed alpha at a time when “extraction shooter” might as well be a Steam tag on every new FPS. Krafton’s pitch is clear: take PUBG’s crunchy gunfeel, drop it into smaller, more curated maps, and tilt the focus away from nonstop PvP toward slow-burn exploration and a supernatural tinge. On paper, that’s a strong angle. In practice, the December alpha shows promise, but it is still a very rough draft of a game that needs sharper identity and far more tuning.

Map Design: Great Mood, Uneven Spaces

The highlight of Black Budget right now is its atmosphere. The test map leans into dim industrial sprawl and overgrown outskirts, with pockets of eerie, almost liminal environmental storytelling. Abandoned checkpoints, half-lit laboratories, and ruined residential blocks hint at occult experiments and clandestine operations gone wrong. The supernatural elements are mostly environmental at this stage, but they do give the map a texture that sets it apart from standard military sandboxes.

The layout, however, wrestles with its own ambitions. Routes between major hot spots are often long, with sparse cover and not much in the way of meaningful micro-objectives. When you are heading toward a marked point of interest, tension builds nicely. Step off that path and the map can feel oddly empty, as if the team has sculpted a handful of strong combat bowls and puzzle-box interiors and then stitched them together with placeholder terrain.

Interior spaces fare better. Multi-floor facilities and bunkers create focused, almost survival-horror pockets, where sound design and tight sightlines finally match the intended pacing. You hear vents rattling, distant groans, and the crack of distant gunfire. Here, the supernatural vibe actually matters. Lights flicker, strange growths creep along walls, and you start to question whether the next threat will be human or something stranger. These sequences show what Black Budget could be if the in-between spaces were elevated to the same standard.

Extraction Flow: Tension, Then Awkward Dead Air

An extraction shooter lives or dies on its raid flow, and Black Budget’s current loop is uneven. Raids begin with a promising sense of dread. You load in lightly geared, scan for landmarks, and move cautiously, listening for suppressed shots or AI patrols. Early encounters with squads feel scrappy and lethal, with PUBG’s traditional bullet lethality enforcing careful movement.

The problems start once you have actually secured decent loot. Extraction points are few and relatively predictable, which makes them magnets for camping squads. In theory that should be high-stakes and exciting, but in this alpha it often creates awkward downtime. You either sprint straight for the nearest exit and hope nobody is watching, or you circle the map trying to guess which extract is least likely to be held, wasting time crossing those underdeveloped mid-zones.

Because the map’s secondary objectives are thin, there is rarely a good reason to take an interesting detour on your way out. The best extraction shooters turn the journey to the exit into a cascade of decisions. Do you hit one more cache for a shot at rare loot, or bank what you have and flee. In Black Budget, the optimal play tends to be simple. Once your backpack looks respectable, the smartest move is to leave. This conservative meta undermines the game’s stated emphasis on exploration.

There are glimmers of a better system. Certain areas clearly want to behave like dynamic risk hubs, teasing better loot or occult artifacts in exchange for escalating threats. When the match RNG tilts in that direction, your path to extraction turns into a tense zigzag of temptation and dread. Those runs feel fantastic. The trouble is that they are not yet the norm.

Progression: Bare-Bones And Too Loot-Centric

Progression in the alpha is serviceable but thin. Runs feed a familiar loop of currency, gear rarity, and basic unlocks. Survive, extract, sell or stash, repeat. This is always going to be the spine of an extraction shooter, but right now Black Budget’s meta is almost entirely economic. You grind for better guns, stronger armor, and bigger bags, but there is little sense of long-term character growth or base-building identity.

Vendors and crafting feel skeletal. There are a few weapon families and attachments, but the buildcraft ends quickly. Without significant talent trees, faction reputations, or hideout style upgrades, every player ends up chasing the same optimal loadouts. In a genre obsessed with persistent stakes, that lack of personalization is a serious weakness. It would not take much to fix. Even modest skill lines that enhance stealth, scavenging, or paranormal resistance could tie directly into the exploration fantasy Black Budget is selling.

The supernatural angle also barely touches progression for now. You occasionally find odd relics or data that hint at stranger systems to come, but in this build they are mostly flavor with a slightly higher sell value. If Krafton wants Black Budget to stand out, it should double down on occult tech, anomalous gadgets, and risk-reward mechanics that only exist in this universe. The framework for something distinct is visible, but the current implementation is too safe and too similar to existing extraction loops.

Performance: Functional, But Rough Around The Edges

Technically, the alpha sits in that frustrating middle ground where nothing is catastrophically broken, yet almost everything feels one big patch away from acceptable. On a mid-range PC, frame rates generally hold above 60, but they stutter in dense interiors and during heavy firefights. Memory usage spikes between raids, occasionally leading to hitches right as you load into a new match, which is the worst possible time for a game with unforgiving lethality.

Netcode is another sore spot. Standard firefights feel mostly fair, but every few raids you will experience a telltale desync death, where killcams show you standing in the open while you are sure you were behind cover. In a battle royale this is irritating. In an extraction shooter, where every death can mean losing gear you have spent hours earning, it is infuriating. This is an alpha, so some roughness is expected, but Black Budget has a higher bar to clear because its progression system amplifies every technical flub.

On the plus side, the UI is already readable and functional, which is not always a given in early tests. Inventory management borrows heavily from established genre templates, but item icons are clear, and drag-and-drop responsiveness is solid. With a bit more optimization and explicit network tuning options, the foundation could absolutely support a stable live release.

Does The Supernatural Exploration Focus Give It Legs?

Right now, Black Budget feels like a prototype with identity issues rather than a confident rival to the extraction heavyweights. The core gunplay inherits all the things PUBG does well: punchy recoil, lethal time to kill, and weapons that sound powerful instead of toy-like. The environmental storytelling hints at a more mysterious world than the typical “PMC playground” setup. Those are meaningful advantages.

But the game currently stops short of turning those strengths into must-play hooks. The supernatural elements are too timid, more set dressing than systemic driver. Exploration is encouraged by marketing copy more than by smart incentives in the raid itself. Map design oscillates between inspired, horror-tinged interiors and bland connective tissue. And the meta progression is so purely gear-driven that a bad night of desync deaths can wipe out hours of investment without giving you any parallel form of advancement to feel good about.

In a vacuum this would be a promising alpha. In today’s market it has tougher competition. Escape from Tarkov still dominates hardcore extraction, games like DMZ have proven there is an appetite for more casual, objective-led raids, and new contenders are lining up every season. To stand out, Black Budget needs to stop playing it safe and lean fully into what only it can do: occult tech, paranormal anomalies that reshape routes mid-raid, and exploration systems that reward curiosity as much as raw K/D.

Verdict: A Watch-List Curiosity, Not Yet A Contender

As of the December closed alpha, PUBG: Black Budget is not ready to challenge the genre leaders, but it is also far from write-off territory. Its fundamentals are mostly solid, its atmosphere has real bite, and when the map, extraction flow, and audio all sync, it delivers that rare, stomach-knotting tension extraction fans crave.

Until the team deepens progression, fixes networking hiccups, and lets the supernatural concept truly off the leash, Black Budget is more interesting experiment than essential new mainstay. It is worth keeping on your wishlist and dipping into future tests if you are already invested in extraction shooters, but it has work to do before it can convince players to abandon their current go-to raid game.

Score: 7/10