Himass and TanVuu: The KRAFTON Ban and Two Names Leaving Vietnam's PUBG Map

In a VTVcab studio, two young men sat shoulder to shoulder, and neither could hold his voice steady. Himass and TanVuu — two names once chanted on the international PUBG stage — wept as they recounted being permanently banned by KRAFTON from every global PUBG tournament. They did not cry over a lost tournament slot. They cried because a career was closed before it reached its climax, and because what was left unfinished behind them was larger than they had imagined. That interview was not a place to assign blame. It was where two young players said goodbye to the version of themselves they had chased for years. The matter traces back to an incident at PUBG Asia Stars 2026. After that event, both Himass and TanVuu received bans from the Korean publisher, penalties heavy enough to shut the door on every PUBG tournament worldwide rather than a single regional stage. For a professional player, this is the harshest possible sanction: not the loss of a season, but the loss of the entire path. Himass wore the colors of Anyone's Legend (AL). TanVuu belonged to The Expendables (TE). Both organizations filed appeals to KRAFTON, attaching information intended to protect their players. According to what was shared in the interview, neither side received the response it expected. The fallout did not stop with two individuals. The Expendables decided to disband its PUBG roster. Such a decision did not merely close TanVuu's door; it removed a home for those left behind, and narrowed Vietnam's already thin PUBG map even further. In a battle royale title like PUBG, the consequences of an individual violation always spread beyond the person involved. In a match where dozens of teams compete at once, an entire organization's reputation sits beside one individual's name. When a ban lands, it does not only bar one person from the stage; it drags along the whole team, the coaching staff, and contracts left mid-sentence. That is why The Expendables' decision to disband its PUBG roster cannot be read as a purely emotional reaction. What stands out is how the two organizations responded. Anyone's Legend asked Himass not to speak or intervene on his own, leaving matters to the specialists. This is a standard crisis approach, but it also took from the player the right to defend himself within his own story. On the other side, The Expendables chose the opposite path: after its appeal led nowhere, it withdrew entirely and dissolved the team. One side kept operating, the other let go. That gap says much about resources, about belief, and about each organization's tolerance under pressure from the publisher. The appeal process appears here like a black box. Both Anyone's Legend and The Expendables submitted information to protect their players, yet did not receive the expected response. There is no word on how the evidence was reviewed, what the grounds for rejection were, or whether any reconsideration step existed. For the players, that silence weighs heavier than the verdict itself, because it removes the ability to understand why they were punished as they were. Both players also set their own endings. Himass said he had planned to compete alongside Taikonn until the end of this year before considering retirement. TanVuu hoped to play roughly two more years to savor the remaining time with esports. Both had reached the international stage — meaning they had crossed enough hardship to earn their place. The ban wiped out that career capital, and no recovery path is currently visible. Asked whether they would return to PUBG if the ban were lifted, both answered decisively: no. Himass spoke of driving for a ride-hailing service to make a living. TanVuu planned to move into trading and online selling. These are far more difficult options than a top-level competitive career, and they show how short the fall from an international stage to daily subsistence can be. The story does not close at the scale of two people. A petition drive gathered more than 4.1 million signatures demanding justice for them. The Korean Game Users Association also spoke up, asking the PUBG PC publisher to explain how the Asia Stars incident was handled. When a consumer protection body in the publisher's own home country has to step forward and question, the issue has outgrown an individual penalty. It becomes a question about the transparency of the disciplinary system, the appeal process, and how a publisher treats players in a peripheral market. Amid the difficulty, both still offered thanks to PewPew — an elder figure in the community — and to the fans who stayed. It is a small detail worth keeping: within a story framed by a ban, they chose to remember those who walked alongside them. The counterintuitive angle sits here. The community is building a two-sided story: either the players are innocent and wronged, or the publisher is right and the penalty justified. But the substance of the incident at Asia Stars 2026 has never been made clear in what was released. No one has stated the specific conduct that led to the ban — whether software cheating, match manipulation, or a code-of-conduct violation. That ambiguity makes every judgment hasty. The irony is this: even if the appeal process were clarified, even if the community won the battle of public opinion, it would not automatically return to Himass and TanVuu the years already lost. A professional player's competitive time is finite, and it waits for no process. There is also a need to guard against the reflex of romanticizing pain. Watching two young men weep on television, one easily writes a complete tragedy. But reality is rarely that smooth. Himass had already planned to retire within the year; TanVuu wanted two more. For one, the ban was an early push; for the other, a sudden cut across. Folding two fates into a single emotional frame blurs the real differences and loses the most worth-listening detail: each left in his own way. What remains after that interview is not a verdict of right or wrong. It is a question about what a young esports scene must do when its own people become entangled in a foreign publisher's disciplinary machinery, when the appeal system does not state its reasons, and when domestic organizations cannot carry the fight to the end. Vietnam's PUBG map has just lost two more names, and one organization has just withdrawn. The open question stays behind: next time, who will stand in the middle, and who will keep their voice until the final minute?