Earlier this week, PUBG Corp. announced a new round of testing for the highly anticipated new map: Sanhok (AKA Codename: Savage). The test server is now live, meaning anyone who owns a copy of PLAYERUNKNOWN's BATTLEGROUNDS on PC can give it a try.
To play it, look for a new title in your Steam library called PUBG: Experimental Server. Make sure it's installed and updated, and then you're free to chase chicken dinners until the server shuts down on Monday, May 14 at 7 am (EST).
I've given it a few tries myself, and Sanhok offers a whole new experience to even veteran PUBG players. Though the map is effectively 1/4th the size of the other two (4x4KM vs 8x8km), each server still holds 100 players. This makes for some intense fighting starting the second you land, and really forces players in the same area to confront one another over loot. It's tough to traverse the jungle without running into a settlement of some sort, which are all intimidating since you know the chances are high that other players could be there. The map is smaller but cover and loot spots are very common, so you can still land away from other players if you keep away from the labeled map points.
As you can see, the map has many clusters of houses that can provide loot and cover to you and your team. From my experience so far, Bootcamp is much like the military base on Erangel with great loot and a higher spawn rate for rarer items. Unlike Erangel's military base, Bootcamp is right in the middle of the Sanhok, meaning it's an even more strategically viable location to drop.
Another striking feature of Sanhok is the Cave location. Like Bootcamp, it also currently attracts a lot of parachuting marauders, but doesn't seem to have exceptionally good loot. The cave is a very cool addition to the map, and parachuting into it feels very Mission Impossible. The cave itself has three outlets, two on land and one that leads to the water system that runs through the middle of Sanhok. If you miss parachuting into the cave (it's a little tricky), don't worry. You can survive the jump from the edge of the cave down into it, so long as you land in the pool of water below.
Sanhok's small size plays a huge factor in the PUBG experience. You'll run into players earlier and more often, and the jungle island is denser than anything PUBG has seen before. There's still much to explore on Sanhok, and I'm excited to see what PUBG Corp. has in store for us.
