Playerunknown's Battlegrounds added new map Karakin, and rotated out Vikendi
The travel company behind Playerunknown's Battlegrounds today added a new stag weekend destination, the roasting North African island of Karakin. The new map is the smallest so far, only 2x2km but still cramming in 64 players. It's hazardous too, because its new 'Black Zone' bombings can outright destroy buildings and the new sticky bomb weapon lets players blast holes in some walls too. With Karakin coming in, PUBG Corp are making space by rotating Vikendi out for a while. And lads? Pack sunscreen.
Karakin is a Morocco-y, Algeria-ish, Tunisia-like sort of place with a few small towns, some farms, a dock, and plenty of palm trees. Though it is small, it does have plenty of cover between the knobbly landscape and gert big rocks littering it. Cover is less reliable on Karakin than other maps, mind.
The most dramatic threat of Karakin is its random Black Zone bombings, which are similar to ye olde Red Zone bombings but only last a few seconds and can actually destroy buildings and kill people inside. Players can also bust through certain walls using the new sticky bombs, and bullets penetrate some particularly thin walls too. Hunkering down is a lot less safe here.
Karakin's launch today comes after a week on the public test servers, during which the devs gathered some feedback they haven't had time to act on. "In a future update we'll be increasing Karakin loot based on player feedback received during the testing period," they say. They plan to make that change that "soon."
The snowy map Vikendi is gone from the map rotation for now. It's still playable by choice in custom matches but won't come up randomly. The devs say rotating maps will help avoid new maps messing with queue times, and Vikendi is the first going out because it's a bit iffy. They explain that "while Vikendi is on vacation we'll be going in and doing a bigger revamp of the map than we've previously done." In the meantime, they're considering adding its exclusive MP5K and G36C weapons to another map's loot pool.
A new season starts today too. Season 6 brings a new pass with 100 new levels to grind through and unlock cosmetic bits. Once again, a free track offers a few goodies but you'll get way more if you pay £7.49/€9.99/$9.99 for the Shakedown Survivor Pass.
Inspired by the new map, this season's new clothing and skins have a lot of Moroccan/Algerian-ish woven patterns. Some are really quite nice by the standards of this game's god-awful fashion.
See the update 6.1 patch notes and season 6 subsite for more on everything.