India recently banned 118 apps in the third wave of bans against apps operated by Chinese entities. What surprised a lot of individuals was the fact that this wave actually caught popular gaming titles PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite in the crosshair. Now, PUBG has confirmed that both PUBG Mobile and PUBG Lite will stop working in India from October 30 onwards.

Consequent to the instructions from the Government of India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT, both Google and Apple removed PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite from the Play Store and App Store respectively. This meant that users could no longer download them from the official app stores on Android and iOS. On Android, players could still sideload the APK, and even updates could be delivered in this way. Everyone presumed that the games would shutter their servers pretty soon, as had happened with TikTok and other apps, in compliance with the instructions from the Government of India. However, surprisingly, the games have continued to work up until this point. If you had the games installed, you could log in normally and play the games without any impediment.

This changes from October, as confirmed by an announcement on PUBG Mobile's official Facebook page.

Consequent to the latest announcement, Tencent Games will terminate all service and access for users in India for both the games from October 30, 2020. The announcement does not mention if any player data will be preserved, or where it will be preserved. It also does not mention of any intentions from PUBG Corporation to resuscitate the game in India by choosing a different publisher.

This move comes after PUBG Corporation revoked Tencent Games' publishing rights for the games in India. The revocation was widely presumed to have addressed some of the Indian government's security concerns. But now it appears that that may not have been entirely sufficient. With the server access being revoked, it's time for players in India to move on, even if they know all the tips and tricks of the game.