The map also comes with its own faction of AI opponents
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is about to enter its 10th season, and it’s getting a new and very small map to celebrate. The new map is called Haven and it’s set to come with several features that haven’t been in previous PUBG maps, including an enemy AI faction, a antagonistic helicopter roaming the skies, a deadly armored truck, heavily guarded supply caches, and a smaller size designed for 32 players each match.
While Haven may be PUBG’s smallest map at 1 km by 1 km — for reference, the game’s first map was 8×8 — the map is still pretty large by most games’ standards. Haven is a sprawling industrial city complete with factories, tall buildings, and a residential district. It’s sort of like blown up version of the cities that dot PUBG’s other maps. The map takes place just as the sun is setting, giving the city a nice eerie feel, which is heightened by the fact that the AI faction called The Pillar roams the streets hunting for players.
PUBG creative director Dave Curd told Viaggio247 that the map’s design was inspired by the PvE faction.
“An AI ecosystem seemed to be the thing that the team was most excited about,” Curd said in a recent interview. “And then you think, ‘well what kind of environment really suits that?’ So if we wanted to have a kill truck on patrol we start thinking about gridded city streets. If we wanted lots of platoons of AI to come across, again that dense city setting makes a lot of sense.”
Image: PUBG
The kill truck that Curd mentions seems to be one of Haven’s most interesting new features, particularly when it comes to The Pillar. What Curd and his team colloquially call the kill truck is technically called the Pillar Tactical, and it’s a huge armored truck that patrols the streets and can’t be killed. If you get spotted by the Pillar’s helicopter that constantly flies around the map, it will shine a light on you, alerting enemy players to your presence and sending the deadly tactical truck to hunt you down.
Curd described the tactical truck as a “punishing, Terminator-like presence,” on Haven, especially since it’s streets are already dark and mysterious. Thankfully, since Haven is also a dense city, there are plenty of buildings to jump into and evade the kill truck, even after it starts throwing Molotov cocktails at you.
Image: PUBG
On top of their vehicles, Pillar also has guards stationed around the map protecting weapon caches. These weapon caches spawn randomly each match and replace the airdrops from other PUBG maps as the premier way to get Haven’s best loot. But you’ll have to fight off the Haven guards to get it.
Thanks to its smaller size, Haven will also only support 32 players in each match, and for now is limited to just solo and duos matches. Just like many of the maps that have come out in the last year, Haven is what PUBG calls a seasonal map, which means that it will leave the game after season 10 ends.
PUBG’s 10th season is set to begin on Windows PC on Dec. 16, and consoles on Dec. 17. All of the season changes, including Haven, are on the PUBG test server now. For a full look at everything that went up on the test server for season 10 you can check out the patch notes.
PUBG Season 10 Test Server patch notes
New map: Haven
Haven is a dense, 1×1 urban map and supports up to 32 players at a time in Duos or 1-Man Duos.
The districts of Haven
Carbon Steelworks
At the center of Haven, we find a massive mill- the Carbon Steelworks Complex. Explore it’s fiery depths to secure precious loot, or use your parkour skills to explore the rooftop! This location offers gunplay at all ranges, but be sure to check those dark corners!
Coal Yards
An industrial wasteland: traverse material piles, climb cranes, and make sure you aren’t too noticeable under the florescent lights. The Coal Yards are a sniper’s paradise!
Industrial Zone
To the North, players will explore the Industrial Zone. Comprised of factories, chemical manufacturers, and storage facilities, players must navigate long range encounters in the field, and brutal closed quarter combat indoors.
Residential Zone
Explore the heart of Haven- the Residential Zone. Fight to the very top of our high-rise apartments, and use the tactical parachute to float down to the crowded streets below, and be careful- the Pillar Tactical patrols Main Street!
Overpass
Explore the heart of Haven- the Residential Zone. Fight to the very top of our high-rise apartments, and use the tactical parachute to float down to the crowded streets below, and be careful- the Pillar Tactical patrols Main Street!
Docks
To the West, the well-lit docks provide generous cover, and traversal opportunities for players to take advantage of! And players who don’t mind a high risk/reward gameplay can use the old barges as a shortcut!
Seasonal Map
Haven is a Seasonal Map only available for the duration of Season 10.
- Haven is only available during Season 10.
- TPP & FPP.
- 32 players each match.
- No normal bots in the map acting as players, or included in the player count.
- Duo Mode only, including 1-Man Duo.
- Match length is shorter than other maps. You’ll earn around 70% of the BP compared to a full-length match on another map.
- You can work towards Mastery, Survivor Pass and BattleStat progress in Haven but your stats aren’t recorded in the Career tab.
Pillar Guards and Commanders
Beware of the Pillar, an enemy faction offering an entirely new gameplay element not seen in existing Battlegrounds. Guards and Commanders are distinct looking opposition which protect certain areas of the map, working as an additional factor you have to contend with while fighting against other players to claim the Chicken Dinner.
- Members of Pillar protect their respective areas and attack players on sight.
- Pillar Guards hold basic equipment while Pillar Commanders hold top-tier equipment.
- Once attacked, they send backup requests to Pillar Scout Helicopters which can then in turn alert the Pillar Tactical.
- Spawns only in Haven.
Pillar Supply Caches
- The Pillar Supply Cache replaces Care Packages, and require cache keys to be looted.
- Players can gain cache keys from defeating Pillar Commanders.
- Once the cache is opened, all players can approach the cache and loot it.
- Spawns only in Haven.
Pillar scout helicopter
- This helicopter roams the skies of Haven, detecting players hiding in open spaces.
- A spotlight is shone directly on detected players and their position is relayed directly to Pillar Tactical. Pillar Tactical then move out towards the highlighted players to launch their assault.
- Spawns only in Haven.
Pillar Tactical truck
- This scary piece of equipment roams around Haven and attacks players on sight. The Pillar Tactical cannot be destroyed, so if you run into one, don’t try to fight it – just run away! This big beast even shoots fire bombs to attack players hiding behind cover in front of it.
- Pillar Tactical communicates with other members of Pillar, responding to calls for backup and joining in engagements.
- Spawns only in Haven.
Emergency Parachute
- Emergency Parachutes can be found around Haven and used to quickly descend from high places and prevent fall damage. Don’t forget to deploy the parachute when making that daring rooftop escape, because they won’t deploy by themselves.
- This is a single-use item which fills the belt slot of your inventory.
- Spawns only in Haven.
Survivor pass season 10: Breakthrough
Survivor Pass: Breakthrough has all the gear you need to take on the mean streets of Haven. Featuring cool new looks based on lore characters and even the new enemy faction, you’ll have plenty of great rewards to unlock as you fight your way through all 100 levels of the pass. Breakthrough lasts about 3 months, so get started early and claim all your awesome new rewards!
- Survivor Pass: Breakthrough begins December 16, 2020 upon completion of live server maintenance.
- The pass ends on March 24 at 11am KST and you’ll have until maintenance on March 31st to claim any pass rewards.
- Kill missions will only be completed when you get a kill during the match, not just from assisting with a kill credited to another player.
- Accumulated kills or assists achieved during a match will be reflected in the kill or assist missions.
Mission Types
- Daily missions
- Weekly missions
- Season missions: There are two types of Season missions for different weapon types.
- SR missions
- SG missions
- Challenge missions: These missions can be completed by exploring every corner of the map.
Ranked season 10
Welcome to another new season of Ranked.
Season 9 Ranked rewards will be delivered upon login. For details on these rewards, please refer to the End of Season 9 Ranked and Rewards Announcement.
- As usual, players will need to complete five placement matches at the start of the new season.
- Players will receive an initial rank for the season upon completion of their placement matches.
- Performance in these placement matches as well as the final rank in the previous season will be used to determine an initial rank at the end of placements.
- The Season 9 Leaderboards will be finalized.
- Following the Live Server maintenance, the Season 9 leaderboards will be updated to the final version.
Ranked Mode Updates
- The method used to calculate RP changes for Ranked matches has been reworked to improve the player experience and reduce fatigue.
- The overall pace of gaining/losing RP has been greatly increased to reduce grind and based on performance compared to the player’s current Rank.
- Players should now be able to more accurately predict how many games they would need to win or lose in a row in order to reach a given Rank.
- Additional Team Kill Penalties
- Team killing in ranked will now also result in a matchmaking delay penalty.
- Added Erangel Ferry
- The Erangel Ferry currently in Normal matches will be added to Ranked and Esports modes.
Ranked Season 10 Rewards
- The following rewards will be available based on the players’ rank at the end of Ranked Season 10.
- Emblems
- Season 10 Ranked Mirado
- Season 10 Ranked Parachute
- We will keep you updated with details through additional announcements, including the Ranked Season 10 End and Rewards announcement as we get deeper into Season 10.
Gameplay
- To better visualize the affects of boosts, the Heal icon animation speed now changes between 4 speed intervals based on your boost level,
- A quick reminder of the 4 boost levels and their effects:
- Level 1: Heal 1 HP every 8 seconds
- Level 2: Heal 2 HP every 8 seconds
- Level 3: Heal 3 HP every 8 seconds and adds a 2,5% character speed boost
- Level 4: Heal 4 HP every 8 seconds and adds a 5% character speed boost
Emotes in Lobby
- Players can now use Emotes in the out-game lobby to show off to their friends.
- Open the emote wheel with the assigned hotkey, or Emote shortcut. The selected emote plays until the wheel disappears.
- You can cancel the activated Emote by clicking RMB.
- Available in lobbies for Normal and Training Mode. Not available in Ranked.
UI/UX
- Skin Preview Improvements
- Added a functionality to wear/take off skins during previews.
- Checkout UI has been improved(Steam only).
- The amount of G-coin players own is displayed in the checkout modal that appears when making a purchase.
- Streamlined the purchase flow so players can buy G-Coin right away when they don’t have enough G-Coin.
- Players can decide how much G-Coin they need and buy it immediately.
- Made changes to more easily identify BP and G-Coin icons from each other.
- Customize menu has been improved
- Changed the background for the Customize menu
- Added a tool tip for Emote tab
- Added Motor Glider and Aquarail filters to Customize – Vehicle – Others menu.
- Improved functionality to skip intro videos upon launch.
- Players are prompted to hold a button to skip the intro after pressing any key while the video is playing.
- Improved the visual consistency of certain tabs.
- Custom Match waiting room UI improvements have been made.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the incorrect location of the category text in the Settings menu.
- Fixed some strange Dirt Bike animations.
- Numerous map fixes were made on Sanhok.
- Fixed the issue where the name “Dacia” was displayed in both English and Chinese at the same time under CUSTOMIZE → VEHICLE → CATEGORY.
- Fixed the issue where abnormal text was displayed in the preview of G-Coin Black Friday items.
- Fixed a typing error under the SETTINGS → Cloud Save menu.
- Fixed the issue where bare footstep sounds were played when wearing Sadiya’s Wedding Dress / Sadiya’s Battle Suit.
- Rolled back the FPP camera point of view from the accidental change with Update 9.2.
- Fixed the issue where the player nicknames weren’t displayed when driving in spectating mode.
- Fixed the issue where the sound of the purchase button was played even when selecting the cancel button in the purchase popup.
- Fixed the issue of certain vehicles being able to deal damage to players by crashing into buildings when the players are standing behind a door.
- Fixed the issue of character models displaying abnormally at distance while holding a weapon
- Fixed an issue where the aiming position looked awkward after scrolling through a replay.
- Fixed the issue where weapon scopes were not displayed while using free cam in replays.
- Fixed the issue of the killfeed not being displayed when scrolling through the replay.
- Fixed the issue of the report feature from the timeline not functioning in the replay.
- Fixed the issue of the Blue Zone time gauge above the minimap not being displayed properly when scrolling through a replay.
- Fixed the issue where the bullet tracer, team color/thickness controls didn’t work during replays.
- Fixed the issue of the spectator priority mode not working.
- Fixed the issue of certain HUD elements not displaying when using healing/boost items items.