Squad Sanxian Island Map: Release Date Speculation, New Features and More

Offworld Industries have spent almost the last decade developing and creating content for the groundbreaking first-person shooter title Squad. Since the release of Squad in 2015, we have seen an evergrowing player base loyal to the developers, being incredibly supportive and patient for much-anticipated releases, such as Harju, and the implementation of new forces such as the People's Liberation Navy. Additionally, we've seen maps such as Forest, Operation First Light, and Nanisivik leave the title, showing that the Offworld Industries are open to change and will do whatever it takes to benefit the game. 

Currently, Offworld Industries are flexing their upcoming map on Squad known as Sanxian Island, these notes and hints can be found at Squad: Updates and Plans for 2023. Sanxian Island features beautiful landscapes and a new edge to modern warfare, having players battle in more Pacific locations around the globe. Squad currently focuses on more European and Middle Eastern battle locations, with players fighting in Finnish Fields or Arabian sands it's nice to see new locations being shown in upcoming updates. 

We can expect to see Sanxian Island release within the next few months, as mentioned in previous articles, Offworld Industries withhold release dates to prevent disappointed fans if experiencing set-backs, which they've admitted to already experiencing within the development of Squads Sanxian Island on July 12.

13 October 2023 - Page checked for the latest information and updates.

Squad: Sanxian Island News

Originally, Sanxian Island was supposed to be released alongside the Peoples Libertarian Army faction release, but due to setbacks this unfortunately hasn't happened. Although, with the release of Squad update 5.0, Offworld Industries decided to release the implementation of the Peoples Libertarian Army, specifically the Navy. Without the release of Sanxian Island, the Peoples Libertarian Army feels slightly useless, having them battle in locations that seem abnormal for this faction, such as Finland against Canadian forces.

The developers state: "As game developers, we understand that the road to perfection is paved with unexpected obstacles, and the development of Sanxian Islands has been no exception" hinting to setbacks for the map, hence why Offworld Industries provided the release of Peoples Libertarian Army, to feed the player base new content and keeping them happy.

We can expect to see a possible new faction alongside the release of the map, meaning more vehicles, weapons, and experiences are awaiting our use. Additionally, we can expect to see improvements on optimization, especially with the new graphical improvements apparently being featured within the map.

Squad: Sanxian Island Map explained

Squads Sanxian Island is situated in the Pacific Ocean, the specifics of the island's location are currently unknown, however, speculation says off the coast of China due to the recent addition of the Peoples Libertarian Army faction. Further speculation has hinted at the map is supposed to replicate Taiwan, with the Peoples Libertarian Army (China) as the attacking faction. This appears to be highly unlikely due to geopolitics and possible problems and offense from fans, although, this wouldn't be incorrect with the current situation between the two countries. 

The map contains the following features:

• Beautiful tropical Asian jungle 
• Blue skies and gleaming blue sea 
• Mixed terrain featuring hilltop bases and outposts 
• Little housing and residential areas 
• Ports and docking areas for boats

After research on Taiwan and its surrounding islands, there appears to be an island called "Sanxiantai Island" on the eastern coast of Taiwan, further inferring many speculators that the island is in fact Taiwan. The island isn't terribly big and is connected to mainland Taiwan via a bridge, the island has several points of interest that can be adapted into Squads remake (providing they're remaking the island) such as observational post, coastline area, and footbridges, ports and locations for boat docking. 

Could this possibly mean we're going to receive a new faction, considering Peoples Libertarian Army was supposed to release alongside Sanxian Island, perhaps we're going to receive Taiwanese forces to act as the defending force.

Sanxian Island Redesigns 

According to developers, Sanxian Island pushes the boundaries of what the Squad player base is currently comfortable with graphics-wise. This highlights the possible increase in graphical beauty we can come to expect with the release of Squads Sanxian Islands. The developers specifically state "We aimed to surpass our previous accomplishments" possibly highlighting the developers are attempting to divert to more realistic graphics, releasing more intense and realistic experiences, although, this will push the boundaries for players with lower-end PCs. 

Squad: Sanxian Island Setbacks and Release Date Speculation

The release date of Sanxian Island is currently unknown and most likely not going to be disclosed for a while, this is due to Offworld Industries' reluctance to disclose dates and news. Considering the Peoples Libertarian Army faction was ready for release and we were just waiting for Sanxian island, we can conclude Offworld Industries are very far through the development phases with the new map. As seen throughout the images, the map looks pretty much complete, however, developers are fine-tuning tweaks and "reevaluating our level design and environment art workflow" showing that the developers are making final changes before the implementation of the map into Squad. 

The developers also mention "By streamlining our workflow, we will be able to deliver not just Sanxian Islands, but future content more seamlessly, ensuring higher quality and more engaging experiences for our players." Further hinting new content that could drop alongside the new map, additionally, the release date could be anywhere between now and the end of October, despite being a rather vague prediction, it's a likely one. 

Squad: Sanxian Island Optimisation 

With Offworld Industries mentioning their huge graphical improvements, optimization issues begin to occur. Despite the saying "If it's not broken, don't fix it" the developers have decided to innovate their typical graphics and overall approach to map design, therefore creating new roadblocks and problems to solve. The developers mention "Our commitment to delivering Squad in its best possible form meant that we had to address performance issues encountered during the development of Sanxian Islands to avoid issues we’ve had with some of our newer maps. This included optimizing assets, improving lighting, and fine-tuning various aspects to maintain the desired visual fidelity while keeping performance requirements within acceptable limits." 

This allows us to infer that their desire to increase graphics and improve the quality of the game has led to overall optimization problems, leading to possible outrage when the map is released. When purchasing a title, you don't want to slowly have your PC rendered useless through in-game graphics updates, you buy titles applying their recommended specifications, trusting they won't change! This setback can be quite devastating as we've seen with current circumstances, however, I'm more than certain the developers will make up for lost time with additional content.