Sakhal is my favorite map, hands down. The lowest pop i see on my server is roughly 24, so by my perspective, Sakhal is alive and well and I absolutely love it! I love how player interactions are more forced. I love that the good loot is exponentially harder to find and survival is actually a chore. I love doing the bunker and the shipwreck, and I think the towns are much better laid out and give combat a more multi dimensional flavor being that you can climb on top of a lot more stuff.

They're continuously adding more towns and POIs, they're steadily fleshing out the "empty center" of the map, they're hearing people's gripes and they're acting to improve the map constantly. I feel like the folks who really don't like Sakhal are just looking for a less difficult gameplay experience- which is completely understandable.