Food poisoning cut the PUBG Mobile World Cup to four matches, and India’s two teams are 14th and 15th
Around 20 of the 64 players at the PMWC Grand Finals in Paris reported illness on Friday, and the last two matches of day one were called off. GodLike and Orangutan begin an eight-match Saturday in the bottom three.
Aug 15, 2026
India’s first appearance at a PUBG Mobile World Cup Grand Final has not gone to plan. Orangutan and GodLike Esports travelled to Paris as the first Indian teams ever to reach this stage of the tournament. Friday ended with ambulances outside the venue, the last two matches of the day scrapped, and both of them sitting near the bottom of a 16-team table.
Four matches, and then the day stopped
The Grand Finals opened on Friday 14 August at the Esports World Cup in Paris with six matches scheduled. Four were played. Nigma Galaxy took the opener with a 23-point Chicken Dinner, S2G Esports won the second on 19, eArena the third, also on 19, and ULF Esports the fourth.
By that point players were visibly unwell. S2G’s Lost was reported to have been vomiting while still competing. Others had to be helped away from the playing area, some of them in chairs. Ambulances were called to the venue and organisers put up a temporary medical tent to treat people on site. Matches five and six never happened.
Accounts from S2G put the number needing medical attention at roughly 20 of the 64 players in the building, four per team across the 16 teams. That figure has not been confirmed by anyone official, and neither has the cause, though people at the event have been describing it as suspected food poisoning.
What the Esports World Cup has said
The EWC confirmed that players from more than one team had reported feeling unwell, said the affected players were “receiving appropriate care and support”, and that it was working with the relevant authorities to establish what happened. It also drew a boundary around the outbreak. The problem appears confined to the PUBG Mobile World Cup, with no similar symptoms reported among players or staff at any of the other tournaments running in Paris.
That last part matters more than it might look. The Esports World Cup is a two-month operation, running from 2 July to 23 August at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, with 25 competitions across 24 games and a total prize purse of $75 million. Something that spread past one title would be a much bigger problem than a rearranged day of PUBG Mobile.
Both Indian teams were hit, and both are in the bottom three
GodLike’s captain Manya was among the players reported ill. So were Orangutan’s Aaru and AKOP, along with IDA Esports’ Emre7 and Tianba’s Milu.
The table after four matches makes for grim reading if you follow Indian esports. eArena lead on 48 points, ahead of Tianba on 45 and Nigma Galaxy on 44. GodLike are 14th on 13. Orangutan are 15th on 10. Only IDA Esports, on two points, sit below them.
Neither team snuck in here. Orangutan finished second in Group A on 91 points, 16 behind Pakistan’s 4Thrives. GodLike were third in Group B on 105 points with 73 finishes, the second-highest finish count in that group. Sixteen teams made the Grand Finals in all, ten straight out of the group stage and six through the Survival Stage.
Eight matches on Saturday
The two lost games have been folded into today. That turns Saturday from a six-match day into an eight-match one, starting at 4.30pm IST and running to a final game scheduled for 10.20pm. Eight rounds of a battle royale in a single sitting is punishing under normal conditions. Doing it a day after a quarter of the field was being treated by paramedics is a different proposition.
Sunday depends entirely on where the table finishes tonight. Day three runs on the Smash Rule: whichever team tops the standings after day two sets a target of its own total plus 10, and the title goes to the first team that passes that mark and then wins a Chicken Dinner. Of the $3 million across the whole tournament, $1.7 million is attached to these Grand Finals.
For GodLike and Orangutan the arithmetic is ugly rather than impossible. GodLike are 35 points off the lead with eight matches left, and one big Chicken Dinner in this format can be worth more than three quiet games. They need several of them, from a squad that spent Friday night dealing with something nobody has yet been able to name.