Rescue Esports won Kenya’s second-season PUBG Mobile National Championship on Sunday 23 August at Mount Kenya University in Thika. The team took the trophy after 12 matches played over two days. We were at the venue on Saturday for the first six matches. The last six and the final ran on Sunday.
The PUBG Mobile National Championship, or PMNC, is the country-level tier of PUBG Mobile’s competitive circuit. Krafton, the South Korean company behind PUBG, runs the circuit with Level Infinite, Tencent’s international publishing label, and Lightspeed Studios, the Tencent studio that co-developed PUBG Mobile with Krafton. All three were on the boards at Thika. Infinix was the device sponsor, and every player at the tournament competed on an Infinix GT 50 Pro.
The carpet at the entrance read “Born to Win”, which is the phone’s marketing line.
Africa has one place at the Global Open
PUBG Mobile split its 2026 calendar into two seasons. Each one runs national championships in more than 30 countries. The national winners go into regional qualifiers, and the regional winners reach the PUBG Mobile Global Open. Krafton set that structure out in its 2026 esports roadmap in December 2025. Season one of the Global Open ran in Southeast Asia. Season two is in Pakistan, with a prize pool of $500,000. Above it sits the PUBG Mobile Global Championship, which this year is in Türkiye.
Africa has one place in the Global Open. PUBG Mobile’s registration campaign for the second season, published in June, called it Africa’s only Global Open slot and the last chance this year for African teams to reach the Global Championship. Citizen Digital gave both prize pools in shillings: KES 64.8 million for the Global Open and KES 388.8 million for the Global Championship.
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Thika was the first of three stages. Rescue Esports goes to the African regional qualifier next, and the winner there takes the continent’s place in Pakistan. Krafton has not published a date for the African qualifier.
Kenya has been building up to this
Kenya has had a steady run of these tournaments, most of them with Infinix money behind them. Infinix and PUBG Mobile ran a campus championship in Nairobi in March 2025 that drew more than 500 solo players and over 20 qualified squads for a KES 250,000 prize pool, with the GT 20 Pro as the tournament phone. The 16-team PUBG Mobile Africa Cup finals came to Nairobi’s Charter Hall in September, on the GT 30 Pro. The PUBG Mobile Varsity Showdown, a university tournament with a $1,000 prize pool and 10 GT 30 Pro handsets for the winners, ran from mid-May to late June this year, according to the announcement.
The continental competition is worth knowing about before the regional stage. XForce Rejects, from South Africa, won that Africa Cup in Nairobi over 13 and 14 September 2025.
The GT 50 Pro amazed gamers
With the whole tournament running on one handset, the GT 50 Pro was on trial along with the teams. We asked players on Saturday how it held up.
“PUBG Mobile is very heavy. Some of the phones people use can overheat and have a lot of lags,” said Echo, who plays for IHT Sports. “In this GT 50 Pro that I’ve played with, it’s smooth. The game is cool and the phone doesn’t burn your fingers. The screen isn’t hot.”
Arnie, a PUBG Mobile player, said what he wanted was consistency under load. “I’m expecting it to handle pressure, a big game load, like many players in the last zone, keep 120fps throughout the whole game.”
Mario, another player, picked out the sound. “It’s powered by Dolby Atmos. When you’re gaming you can literally feel the sound and vibrations.”
For anyone following Rescue Esports from here, the thing to watch is the African regional qualifier and the one continental place it carries. The team that wins it plays in Pakistan for a share of $500,000.
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