PUBG’s Loot Trucks Took Inspiration from Vikendi’s Trains to Become Mobile Care Packages

Sanhok is getting a makeover in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and will look much different when the revamped map comes to live servers this month. One of the most notable features the remastered battleground will contain is something called the “Loot Truck.” This system is actually comprised of several trucks which make their way around the map and contain a bunch of high-tier loot for players to obtain. They can’t be driven like other vehicles in PUBG, but if you damage them enough or manage to completely disable them, you’ll have some valuable loot waiting for you assuming you don’t draw too much attention to yourself.

The idea of a mobile loot dispenser is new to PUBG, but the automated nature of the Loot Trucks seemed reminiscent of the trains added to the Vikendi map during its rework. Speaking to ComicBook.com, PUBG Madison studio director Dave Curd said the Loot Trucks on Sanhok were absolutely inspired by those trains.

“Once we were dropping and jump on that train and cruise around the map, we responded to how much life it added and how much improvements and just kind of ambient life it gave a map. We thought, ‘What else can be like that?’ And we stumbled upon the idea, some of the easiest brainstorms or like simple, simple, simple pitches. And one of us said, ‘Mobile care package, you know, mobile supply drop.’”

The idea evolved from there. What if that care package was a truck carrying contraband confiscated from past battle royale participants, Curd hypothesized. These trucks head to different key locations around the map, so it’d make sense they’d be filled with valuable loot.

Loot trucks are also smarter than they appear. Though they drive around the map on their own without needing players to guide them, they respond to what’s happening and can adapt to situations. Curd said the trucks aren’t on locked paths and have routes they can choose, and they can even go off-road.

“If two are on the same track or one’s dead, they know to get out of the way and go around each other,” he said. “It should hopefully surprise and delight players, like we really wanted to get more improvisation and surprise into the map.”

Though the prospect of mobile loot is an enticing one, Curd said there’s still a balance to be struck. Players have to reckon with their current situations and the state of the match to see if it’s worth depleting your resources to take down a Loot Truck. You can toss down spike strips to outsmart the Loot Truck, chase it in your own vehicle, or just blast it apart with a Panzerfaust. You can also just leave it alone and hope you’ll get to ambush someone else who goes for it.

Curd said it’s important to keep adding interesting elements like this one that players have to make decisions around. If everyone starts dropping and immediately attacking the Loot Truck every match, however, the developers will know it’s overpowered and that something needs changing.

These Loot Trucks are currently only planned for the Sanhok map, but Curd stressed that it’s a fans-first situation. If people love the feature, he said the team would “absolutely love to get it into more maps.”

PUBG’s Sanhok remaster and its Loot Trucks will arrive on live servers with the start of Season 8 on July 22nd for PC and July 30th for consoles. The content is now on the PC test servers and will come to console test servers on July 20th.