It’s already hard to imagine now that for almost a year Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds had a single map. A fine map Erangel is too, but if variety is the spice of life then Mirarmar and new map Sanhok bring out new flavours from the battle royale giant, and that can only be a good thing.

So what’s the deal with Sanhok? Is it just a change of scenery, or does it bring meaningful gameplay changes along with its fresh climes. Let’s take a look.

Sanhok Map Size

Unlike Erangel and Miramar which both weight in at 8km x 8km, Sanhok’s half the size at 4km x 4km. The player count remains at 100, which means there’s a much greater chance of running into opponents here than in other locations. A tactical rethink’s in order before you set foot on its jungle canopy.

Map Setting

Set in southeast Asia, Sanhok summons Apocalypse now and Platoon with its jungles, temples, and tuk-tuks. The developers went on location to a number of areas in southeast Asia including abandoned tourist resorts in order to gather photogrammetry data (hundreds of photographs which form a point cloud to make an in-game 3D model) and to get a real sense of the region’s real-world geography. There’s every chance that the tree stump you crouch behind for cover in Sanhok exists somewhere out there in the real world.

Sanhok Regions

Although there’s a coherent theme to Sanhok there’s also a surprising amount of geographical variation. Three military bases are peppered across the map, along with ‘Paradise resort’ tourist trap and a bootcamp. There are also mountain ruins, and an extensive network of tunnels within a series of temples.

Start Locations

The highest volume of valuable level 3 loot can be found around the military bases, bootcamp, and Paradise resort. That certainly makes sense regarding the nature of army facilities, and as for the tourist resort - maybe that’s why it’s abandoned now. Assault rifles strewn about the place will do nothing for your Tripadvisor rating.

New weapons and vehicles

As is tradition in PUBG by this point, cometh the map, cometh the new bits and bobs to entertain players while they explore it. In this case Sanhok’s release is synced up with the SLR, a DMR that can be fitted with assault rifle attachments as well as the usual DMRs, and (in case you weren’t sick of acronyms yet) the QBZ fully automatic assault rifle which uses 5.56mm ammo.

In terms of vehicles, there’s a good variety across the 4x4 map. Motorcycles, buggies, pickups, vans, PG-117 boats and Aquarail jetskis are all present and correct, along with the all-new Tukshai tuk-tuk. It’s not going to turn your round around when you find one and become a killing machine, but it’s a pretty funny way to navigate such a stern and dangerous map.