THE SAKURAJIMA GOLDMINE: How Palworld Players Are Exploiting Enemy Bases for Infinite Legendary Treasure Maps (And Why the Community is Divided)
EVERYONE IS FARMING THE WRONG ISLANDS IN PALWORLD 1.0 AND WASTING HOURS OF ENDGAME GRINDING! 🚨
While casuals are getting lost in the Volcano bases or stuck in the Starter Island treehouses for trash schematics, min-maxers have quietly taken over Sakurajima Island to exploit a massive drop rate for Legendary Treasure Maps… But if you don’t know the exact route through the “-471, 223 Maze Base”, the wall-teleporting Moonflower Genin will absolutely slaughter your party before you even touch the final chest.
Stop wasting your Gold Keys. Here is the exact farm route the top 1% are using right now 👇🔥
The release of Palworld Version 1.0 hasn’t just introduced new Pals and level caps; it has completely overhauled the game’s high-tier economy. At the center of this new endgame loop lies a single, highly coveted item: The Treasure Map. Required to track down the game’s most lucrative loot caches, treasure maps have become the undisputed currency of the hardcore Palworld community. But acquiring them is proving to be a brutal, bloody endeavor.
According to community data-miners and top-tier content creators, there is only one reliable way to farm these maps: raiding the heavily fortified Enemy Bases scattered across the Palpagos Islands. However, a massive divide has formed within the community. While millions of uninformed players are wasting hours clearing massive, elaborate fortresses in the Volcano and Desert biomes only to be rewarded with basic schematics, an elite fraction of min-maxers has discovered a concentrated “loot hub” on Sakurajima Island that is dropping Legendary Treasure Maps at a suspiciously high rate.
Here is an inside look at the Treasure Map economy, the bases you need to avoid, and the terrifying “Maze” that is currently making players rich.
The Decoy Biomes: Where Players Go to Waste Time
To understand why the community is in an uproar over loot tables, you have to look at how Pocketpair designed the Enemy Bases in Version 1.0. Across the map, there are dozens of enemy faction strongholds. Each base typically features several small purple and gold chests, a caged Pal that can be rescued, and a final “Big Boss Chest” at the very end of the compound. Only this final chest has a chance to drop a Treasure Map.
For the past week, players have been flocking to the most visually impressive bases, assuming that bigger bases equal better loot. They are dead wrong.
Take the Volcano Island bases, for example. At coordinates -771, -492, players encounter what is arguably the most elaborate fortress in the game. It features four massive towers and requires extensive use of the Grappling Gun to scale vertical walls and navigate multi-level walkways. Players are spending 15 to 20 minutes meticulously clearing out heavily armed syndicate thugs, opening hidden attic chests, and using Gold Keys, only to open the final chest and receive a basic Barricade Schematic or a standard-tier map.
The situation is equally frustrating on the Starter Island. Pocketpair introduced “Treehouse” variant bases (located at coordinates like 90, -113). These bases are completely engulfed in dense foliage, making visibility zero. Players are getting stuck on staircases, ambushed by hidden enemies, and forced to blindly jump off flying mounts just to find the door.
“I spent 30 minutes lost in a treehouse base, couldn’t see a thing, got stuck in a wall, and my reward was a white treasure map and some curry,” complained a highly upvoted post on the official Palworld Subreddit. “It’s a complete trap.”
The Sakurajima Exploit: High Risk, Legendary Reward
While the casual player base suffers through the Volcano and Desert regions, the top 1% of players have completely relocated their farming routes to Sakurajima Island.
Why Sakurajima? Density and drop rates.
In a recent viral route breakdown by prominent Palworld creator “Easynow,” it was revealed that Sakurajima Island hosts four Enemy Bases clustered incredibly close together (-404, 183 | -471, 223 | -596, 217 | -681, 185). A well-equipped player can fly a fast mount between all four bases in a fraction of the time it takes to clear a single Volcano stronghold.
More importantly, the community has confirmed that the final Big Chests in the Sakurajima bases possess a drastically higher internal drop rate for Legendary Treasure Maps. In a single 20-minute farming run across these four bases, players are walking away with up to nine maps, multiple of which are Legendary tier, alongside hundreds of Ancient Technology Points and Large Pal Souls.
Furthermore, rescuing the caged Pals in these specific bases frequently rewards the player with Kinship Peaches—another massive endgame bottleneck—allowing players to solve two grinds simultaneously.
The Wall-Teleporting Nightmare: Surviving the Maze
But the Sakurajima farm is not for the faint of heart. Pocketpair seems to have anticipated players flocking to this region, and they guarded the Legendary Maps with the most frustrating enemy type in the 1.0 patch: the Moonflower Genin.
The base located at -471, 223 on Sakurajima is completely unique. It is not an open fortress; it is a claustrophobic, indoor labyrinth specifically designed to disorient the player. Hallways double back on themselves, fake walls hide secret staircases, and dead-ends are rigged with ambushes.
This tight, close-quarters combat environment is a death sentence because of the Moonflower Genin. These specific faction enemies possess the ability to literally teleport through solid walls.
Discord servers dedicated to Palworld strategy are flooded with clips of players getting instantly deleted in the Sakurajima Maze. A player will open a purple chest in a tiny side-room, only for five Moonflower Genin to teleport through the ceiling and immediately open fire.
“If you aren’t carrying a Vortex Beater, do not even step foot in the Sakurajima Maze,” warns a pinned guide on a popular community Discord. The Vortex Beater assault rifle has rapidly become the undisputed meta weapon for this specific farm. Because the Genin spawn in massive, tightly grouped swarms in these small rooms, the sheer fire rate and damage output of the Vortex Beater is the only reliable way to clear the room before they teleport behind you.
What Happens Next?
The discovery of the Sakurajima Treasure Map farm has sparked a fierce debate about the game’s balance. Purists argue that Legendary Treasure Maps should be globally balanced, rather than forcing the entire player base to run the exact same four bases on a single island. They point out that incredibly well-designed bases—like the hidden research facility in the Snowy Mountains (-388, 450) or the only known Water Base (-347, -1070)—are being completely ignored because their loot tables simply cannot compete with Sakurajima.
Conversely, the hardcore community maintains that the intense difficulty of dealing with wall-teleporting Moonflower Genin justifies the Legendary payouts.
As of this publication, developer Pocketpair has not announced any incoming hotfixes to balance the enemy base loot tables. Until they do, the economy of Palworld is clear: If you want Legendary Treasure Maps, load your Vortex Beater, memorize the layout of the Sakurajima Maze, and prepare to farm.
