PUBG x CurseForge UGC Contest Winners Revealed as 30 Community Modes Head to Playgrounds

The PUBG x CurseForge UGC Contest has officially concluded, revealing the player-created modes that will soon become part of PUBG: Battlegrounds through the PUBG: Playgrounds hub. Creators from around the world submitted their own interpretations of what a PUBG experience could be, producing everything from large-scale military battles and cooperative survival challenges to obstacle courses, horror adventures and competitive party games.

A total of 30 main winners were selected across three categories: Combat, Survival and Creative. Each category features ten successful entries, with the first-, second- and third-place creations highlighted in the official winners video. More importantly for regular players, the contest was designed to move these projects beyond a simple showcase. The winning modes are scheduled to appear inside PUBG: Playgrounds between October and December 2026.

The results provide an early demonstration of how far PUBG’s user-generated-content tools can push the game beyond its traditional battle royale structure. Familiar weapons, vehicles and movement systems remain important, but the winning creators have reorganized those ingredients into experiences that often look very different from a standard match on Erangel.

Three categories covering very different sides of PUBG

PUBG and CurseForge divided the main competition into Combat, Survival and Creative categories. Ten creations were chosen in each category following a judging process involving PUBG developers, the CurseForge team and official CurseForge modders.

Combat was intended for modes built around direct competition and firefights. Survival covered experiences in which endurance, cooperation or environmental threats take priority. Creative gave creators room to experiment with less conventional concepts, including platforming, party-game hazards and alternative victory conditions.

That distinction produced three very different sets of winners. Some creators expanded PUBG into larger and more chaotic battlefields, while others reduced it to tightly controlled rounds or removed conventional gunplay from the center of the experience altogether.

Each category carried a $25,000 prize pool, with its first-place creator receiving $10,000. Alongside the 30 category winners, the wider $95,000 contest also included ten mid-contest prizes worth $500 each and six Community Favorite awards worth $2,500 each.

GAS: Ground Assault Storm wins the Combat category

The first-place Combat award went to GAS: Ground Assault Storm, created by T1MK47. It is a 10-versus-10 team-based mode set inside an expansive desert military installation divided into four combat zones.

Matches last up to 25 minutes, with the first team to reach 100 points claiming victory. Instead of forcing everyone into the same basic role, the mode offers seven different combat classes that players can select by interacting with targets at the spawn area. These include specialists designed for melee attacks, close-range gunfights, long-range sniping, heavy suppression and anti-vehicle combat.

The battlefield also contains usable vehicles, hidden weapon rewards and dynamic events. One of its defining mechanics involves activating a device located on a transport aircraft, triggering a sandstorm and bombing threat while introducing a heavily armed Super Soldier capable of changing the direction of the match. The combination of class counters, vehicles and large-scale events helps explain why GAS secured the highest position in the Combat division.

Second place went to Operation Overlord by Xennnnny. This asymmetrical attack-and-defense mode takes inspiration from a World War II beach assault and asks attackers to capture three objectives in sequence. Defenders must hold positions built around a crashed aircraft, an air traffic control tower and a remote prison island. Howitzers, mortar positions, motor gliders and defensive rocket launchers add an additional layer to the battle.

Castle Conquest of Four Kings, created by Ta1b, took third place. Its approach is dramatically different from the firearms-heavy warfare of the first two winners. Four teams fight for control of flags using swords and crossbows, transforming PUBG into a medieval-style territorial battle centered on close combat and carefully positioned ranged attacks.

The remainder of the Combat winners includes Super Soldier War Z, Deadlands – Zombie Bio-Infection, King of the Hill by Ermaak, Mini Royale, Haejindo Attack and Defend, Fishing Harbour – Bomb Defusal Mode and a collection of 12 skill-based one-versus-one arenas.

Tower Defense leads the Survival winners

Tower Defense by Doker claimed first place in the Survival category. Designed for three-player cooperation, the mode sends teams through nine waves of increasing difficulty. Players can influence whether the approaching opposition becomes faster or more numerous, creating a risk-management element that changes how each run develops.

Survivors must coordinate with their teammates, purchase equipment from an in-game shop and use tools such as C4 to keep the attackers under control. Rather than searching for a final surviving player, the mode turns PUBG’s arsenal into the foundation of a compact cooperative PvE experience.

Second place went to Backrooms: Chapter One by chichobmx. The solo and cooperative survival-horror mode supports between one and three players, challenging them to explore unsettling environments, locate secret rooms, solve objectives and find an escape route. Its inclusion shows that the contest judges were interested in atmosphere and exploration as well as competitive action.

Capture and Retrieve by SY223 finished third. It is an objective-focused team mode based on stealing enemy data and successfully bringing it back. Although it retains the possibility of direct combat, winning depends on completing the central retrieval objective rather than simply accumulating eliminations.

Other selected Survival experiences demonstrate the category’s wide definition. The top ten also includes the social-deduction-inspired Who Is the Impostor?, the racing and obstacle concepts Run Down and Carnival Rush, Multiplayer Bumper Cars, Deadlock, a one-versus-five Juggernaut minigame and Glider Rush.

PLATFORM! takes first place in the Creative category

The Creative category was won by PLATFORM!, created by klukva008. Sixteen players begin together on a single platform, where a new lethal event activates every 15 seconds. Exploding vehicles, lasers, lava and other hazards gradually turn the arena into a rapidly changing survival challenge, with victory awarded to the last player standing.

The concept is easy to understand but deliberately unpredictable. Players must react to a continuous sequence of threats rather than rely exclusively on PUBG’s normal shooting mechanics. That combination of accessibility, escalating chaos and replayability made PLATFORM! the top-ranked Creative submission.

Gunfight – Palace by EpicPancakeZ_ earned second place. Two equally sized teams of up to four players receive identical randomized loadouts and fight through one-life rounds. Because both sides enter with the same equipment, the format places greater emphasis on positioning, coordination and mechanical execution.

Third place went to Cyber Pulse – ShuangMu by ShuangMuXianSheng. The mode mixes parkour and survival as players jump across illuminated platforms, avoid disappearing tiles and attempt to seize the final flag. Like PLATFORM!, it uses PUBG’s movement and physics as the basis of the experience instead of treating gunplay as the only possible form of competition.

The other Creative winners are Level-Based Game, Jump Rush, Pain Marathon, Fantasy Amusement Park Challenge, Shipwreck, Ironman 9 and Pulse Shift. Together, the ten selections illustrate the variety PUBG’s creation tools can support when designers are allowed to move beyond battle royale rules.

Community voting produced six additional favorites

The contest also invited players to select six Community Favorites from the available finalists. Level-Based Game received the highest position in the public vote, followed by King of the Hill, Cheryomushki: Point Control, Multiplayer Bumper Cars, Climb for Glory and Backrooms: Chapter One.

Several of these projects also secured places in the three main judged categories. Community Favorite winners remained eligible for category prizes, allowing some creators to receive recognition from both the official judging panel and the players who tested or followed their work.

The overlap is particularly valuable because it highlights modes capable of satisfying two different standards. A project may impress developers and experienced modders through its structure or technical execution, but a community award shows that its central idea also connected with the audience expected to play it.

The winning modes will roll into PUBG: Playgrounds from October

All 30 category winners have been assigned a PUBG: Playgrounds featuring window between October and December 2026. The three first-place creations—GAS: Ground Assault Storm, Tower Defense by Doker and PLATFORM!—are scheduled to remain featured throughout the entire three-month period.

The other winners will rotate through monthly groups. Operation Overlord and Castle Conquest of Four Kings are among the Combat modes scheduled for October, while Backrooms: Chapter One and Capture and Retrieve are currently listed for December. Gunfight – Palace and Cyber Pulse – ShuangMu are due to enter the Creative rotation in November.

PUBG has noted that this is an updated schedule, replacing the timeline originally presented when the contest was announced. Players interested in a particular creation should therefore follow the final official schedule rather than relying on the earlier contest plan.

PUBG: Playgrounds is currently a PC-focused hub accessible from the Play menu. It lets users browse available community modes, inspect details such as supported player counts and team sizes, filter experiences by category and enter matchmaking directly from a mode’s information page. Players can also search using the name of a mode or its creator.

Creating modes requires a Battlegrounds Plus account, but the Playgrounds hub gives the broader PC audience a direct route into the published experiences. That integration is important: instead of expecting players to manually locate, install and organize community content outside the game, PUBG can place selected creations in front of its existing audience.

A significant first showcase for PUBG’s UGC future

The contest winners demonstrate that PUBG’s community tools are capable of supporting far more than variations on the original battle royale formula. The podium alone includes a 20-player class-based warzone, a cooperative tower-defense challenge, a survival-horror escape game, a four-team medieval battle and a platform filled with constantly changing hazards.

That variety may ultimately prove more important than the competition itself. PUBG: Battlegrounds has spent years expanding through new maps, weapons, collaborations and limited-time modes, but UGC offers another source of longevity: a continuing supply of ideas developed by the players themselves.

The October rollout will be the real test. A contest can reward technical creativity, but the lasting value of these modes will depend on whether players return to them, recommend them and form communities around them. With all 30 main winners scheduled to receive in-game exposure, PUBG and CurseForge are giving those experiments an opportunity to find an audience rather than allowing them to disappear once the prizes have been distributed.

For now, GAS: Ground Assault Storm, Tower Defense by Doker and PLATFORM! stand as the inaugural category champions. Their success establishes three very different models for future PUBG creators: expand the battlefield, reinvent survival or disregard convention and build something unexpected.