Dissecting PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' datamined desert map
Surveying the future.
PlayerUnkown's Battlegrounds rolled out its latest patch to test servers yesterday and already someone has datamined the new desert mini-map.
Redditor bizzfarts uncovered the map from the patch's directories, using UModel to reveal its contents.
Check out the map below, or download the high resolution version here.
So what does this leak tell us about the new map?
Let's start with the names. A bit weird, right? Some of the bizarre town names include Rage, Murderland, Hard Luck and Kill Box. But remember, this map is set in Central America/Mexico, which Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene confirmed to Eurogamer's Ian Higton at Gamescom. So it's likely these names will be in Spanish, making them sound slightly less strange. For example, Strangle would become Ahogos - which is much nicer.
Of course, it could be these names are just placeholders to amuse the team.
It also seems, from the leaked image, Hard Luck (the largest town in the map) will be pretty big. Considering Greene confirmed to our Ian the map will be 8x8, it looks like it'll end up nearly a square kilometre in size. Add to that the density of every town and the increased verticality, and this map looks set to be an urban jungle of chaotic proportions.
Being a desert map, there is a distinct lack of water through the main area. However, around the outskirts, from the South to the East, we can see a large greenish area which looks likely to be a river. We know there will be some water, because Greene revealed there would be smaller water vehicles in the map. We don't know what the new vehicles will be but it seems players will have to be less reliant on water than they are in Erangel. Players won't be able to quickly sail from one end of the map to the other and spend most of their time hiding in a boat. This map will force evasive players to land.
Let's move on to the crater areas, which haven't been mentioned before. We know crater means these areas will be large depressions or holes in the ground. At this point we can only speculate, but I hope these are difficult enough to get out of that they create a Gladiator style tournament ring for players to battle in.
There's still no time frame for when the desert map will be released but it's shaping up to be a good one.