This PUBG fan's snowy concept for the game's next map is seriously impressive

We know that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' next map is going to have snowy bits, and that we're due to find out more about it this month. While you wait, feast your eyes on Nördheim, a Scandinavian fan concept for the new map that looks drop-dead gorgeous. It's a fully fleshed out idea, too, with a proper layout, unique vehicles, and lots of both major and minor locations.

The map would play very differently to the two existing maps, with thick ice sheets in its centre but thinner ones towards the edges, which large vehicles won't be able to drive on. You'd be able to break the ice manually with grenades or plain bullets, which could lead to a few icy baths. And because of that water temperature, players won't be able to spend as much time submerged as they can on the game's existing maps.

Players could also leave blood trails in the snow for one minute after they've been shot and—my favourite feature—the red zone would be replaced by a localised blizzard that makes it difficult to see or hear anything past the wall of snow.

The map's locations are inspired by real-life Scandinavia, and include an airport, an ice hotel, a naval base and a ski resort. The minimap is below, and it seems to have a good mix of snowy wastelands and built-up areas (click on the full-screen icon to expand).

The designer, who spent more than 100 hours working on the concept, has also suggested a number of vehicles, including a hovercraft, a snowmobile, a knock-off Volvo, and skis, which let you carve down mountains while hip-firing. That sounds amazing.

If you want to see more concept art, then head to the map's official website. Clearly it's pie-in-the-sky thinking, but it's really whetting my appetite for PUBG's next map.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.