PUBG’s newest map, Karakin, would have been the fifth map in the game’s rotation, but the devs are opting to keep the number at four. Why? It’s all about queue times according to the developer. While millions still play, the folks behind PUBG want to keep matchmaking as smooth as possible.
With the map count decided at four, Vikendi is the odd one out. But it won’t be gone forever. And the good news is, the devs are planning a major revamp for the snowy Battle Royale map. From the most recent patch notes:
“Speaking of Vikendi, since we launched the snowy slaughterhouse back in December of 2018, we’ve received a lot of feedback. Performance, spawn balance, and even buildings were all places with room for improvement, some of which we already attempted but we feel we can still do better. That said, while Vikendi is on vacation we’ll be going in and doing a bigger revamp of the map than we’ve previously done. When it’s time for it to come back, there will be plenty of new stuff for you to explore and enjoy.”
While Vikendi is out for now from the map rotation, you can still play it via custom matches.
With Vikendi no longer in the map rotation, that also means we lose out on weapons. At least, temporarily. The G36 (assault rifle) and MP5 (submachine gun) were both map specific spawns on Vikendi. So far, there’s been no official word on bringing them to other maps. I’ll update this post if that changes.
I would like to see PUBG dump the entire loot pool across all the maps. Vikendi was my least favorite of the maps, but I would play it to use the different weapons.
As for Karakin? It’ll be interesting to watch how fans respond to the smaller map with destructible environments. Will smaller maps with different feature sets become the norm? Or, will the next map go back to the more traditional design we’ve seen throughout PUBG’s lifespan. At the very least, I’m pumped for even shorter matches.