Sanhok is the third map to be introduced to PlayerUnknown’s Battleground, following Erangel at the start and Miramar, the desert map. It’s much smaller than the other two maps currently available, at around 4x4km and is a tropical island, supposedly somewhere around Thailand or the Philippines. We haven’t seen Sanhok played in a competitive format yet because for one, it hasn’t been available for very long and two, it doesn’t lend itself to squad-based gameplay very well.

An enormous elephant is the focal point of 'Paradise'. Image courtesy of PUBG.

We’re out in Berlin for PGI 2018 and the action has been non-stop. Gen.G Gold took first place in both the TPP tournament and the Charity Showdown, while Team Liquid, Welcome To South Georgo, OMG and Pittsburgh Knights have all looked very strong. We’re halfway through the FPP section of the tournament but unfortunately, all but one of the 16 games have been played on Erangel. The one game that wasn’t was the first FPP match which OMG won on Miramar.

We posed the same question to a number of pros: “What do you think of Sanhok and could it work in a competitive format?” Jace ‘Voxsic’ Patras of the Pittsburgh Knights assumed that most pro players would be in agreement, saying “Right now, I think all of us agree Sanhok's probably not going to be viable just because it's a small map and the amount of third partying and stuff that goes on is just not good for a competitive team. Solos and Duos especially would be good for Sanhok but Squads is pushing it.”

Getting caught in the cave limits your escape routes. Image courtesy of PUBG.

That hasn’t been the case though. Donte ‘Cillo’ Burgese from Team Gates explained that he’d love to see Sanhok in competitive and that it suits his playstyle. “I like the more hectic style of game that comes with this 20-team format,” Cillo told us, as PUBG esports only recently moved from 16 teams to 20. “Where the traditional map and format favors positioning more, I feel like Sanhok is a great fragging map. I feel like it’ll favor more in-the-moment combat skill and reflex. You must be on top of your shooting game to survive there. I’d love to see that translate to competitive in some way.”

Jord ‘Ibiza’ van Geldere from Team Liquid had similar thoughts to Voxsic though, explaing that there’s possibilities but it wouldn’t work with 16 to 20 teams. He reckons it’d be great for duos but not beyond that and unfortunately, he doesn’t think we’ll see duos at large scale tournaments yet either and that Sanhok duos competition will be reserved for online tournaments by third party organisers.

These salt farms are one of many points of interest across the map. Image courtesy of PUBG.

There’s another option though, put forth by Kevin ‘Miccoy’ Linn of Ghost Gaming: "I think [Sanhok could be competitive] in squads but they'd have to do more, like if they did two lobbies of 10 and then the top five go through to the finals. Or it'd be really good for a duos competitive map." It’s an interesting concept, perhaps one that would be great for a round-robin style tournament?

For a lot of casual players, Sanhok has sparked life back into PUBG because it’s so fast paced and games don’t take as long. It’s definitely more viewer friendly too - less teams and players means there’s less chaos to keep track of, games are over quicker and the fighting starts sooner, so we don’t have to watch players meandering around the map for half an hour. Time will tell whether it proves successful but we definitely want to see it attempted at a major event.

For more PUBG content from PGI 2018, check out this pro player who claims PUBG “tops Fortnite in every aspect”, a very bold claim. Despite placing third in TPP, Welcome To South Georgo also said that they haven’t practiced TPP whatsoever before this event.