Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds will receive its first major update tomorrow, an update which will help to stabilize the game and even add in some new items and weapons.
According to a new post on the Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds website, the update will go live tomorrow, April 20th, at 3 a.m. EST. Furthermore, the process of implementing it reportedly won’t take longer than an hour.
The development team explained how they plan to release a steady cadence of updates every month or so, and that some issues might take more than one patch to fix (hence why there’s a list of known issues in the below patch notes).
The patch notes for tomorrow’s update are as follows:
Known issues
● The motorbike leans slightly to the right when being driven straight.
● The tires of the motorbike cannot be shot out at the moment.
● [Non-English Players] There are some mistranslated in-game texts and they will be shown in English.
Client Performance Improvements
● Made some improvements to address the issue of FPS drops when opening the inventory UI.
● Reduced the load on the CPU through instance rendering so that the GPUs can function to their full capabilities
● Made improvements to address the issue of FPS severely dropping when in the vicinity of Yasnaya, Polyana & Georgopol.
● Rendering performance on PCs with minimum system requirements has been improved.
● Graphic performance and quality on PCs with minimum system requirements has been improved.
Server Performance Improvements
● Performance improvements have been made with relation to the items spawned in the world.
Content Updates
● Added Vector SMG. A very powerful SMG most appropriate for short to mid-range combat that is spawned in the world.
● Added Motorbike w/ sidecar. A sidecar-less version will be added in a future update.
● Added a 2X Aimpoint scope.
● Added a Ballistic Mask.
● Added 3 new color variations for the Dacia.
● Added the crossbow back into the game.
World
● Adjusted the density of environmental elements to be identical across all graphic options.
● Adjusted object placement to address issues of characters getting stuck.
● Adjusted placement of trees that were spawning inside houses or above the terrain.
● Adjusted the frequency of thunder sound effects.
UI
● Revised certain system messages and item descriptions.
● Added descriptions for attachments.
● The dead team-mate icon will now disappear after a certain time and distance when in team modes.
● Map markers are now visible to all teammates.
● Names of teammates now appear on the world map.
Gameplay
● Made improvements to the REVIVE state:
o You are now able to move sideways and backwards.
o The REVIVE timer will no longer decrease when a teammate is attempting to revive you.
o When attempting to revive a teammate, the reviving timer icon will now also be visible to the player being revived.
o Adjusted the character position slightly when in the REVIVE state.
● Made improvements to the Spectate system:
o Made improvements to address the issue of characters shaking.
o You are now able to open the world map when spectating.
o You can now view the casting bar when the teammate you are spectating uses heal and/or boost items.
● You can no longer use heal and/or boost items when in water.
Action/Gunplay
● Combat Balance Adjustments:
o Adjusted the overall balance on all attachments.
Adjusted the overall balance on Assault Rifles.
We will continue to balance all weapons and attachments throughout Early Access.
● Fixed the issue that caused cars to temporarily stop when their tires get shot out.
● You can now sprint when in the crouch stance.
● Fixed the issue of “Armed/Unarmed” state not being applied when there are delays in the server network.
● The blood hit effect size now varies according to the weapon caliber.
● You can now move when in aiming and/or scoping in the prone state.
● Fixed an issue with the sitting position of the character in the back-right seat of the UAZ.
● Fixed an issue with the position of the left hand when reloading the AWM.
● Fixed an issue where aiming from vehicles was not accurate.
● The positions of bullet hits are now the same for both yourself and the others.
● Fixed an issue that caused the hit box for the head to be slightly larger than the actual head.
● Adjusted the ragdoll physics for dead characters to be more natural.
● Fixed an issue that caused the character to use the wrong aim offset when using the freelook function while holding a grenade.
● Fixed an issue that caused the landing-from-a-high-altitude motion to seem awkward when holding a pistol.
● Improved the quality of zoomed-in scope views.
● Bolt actions are now triggered even after the final shot has been fired, so that you can start re-firing as soon as reload is complete.
● Added swimming animations to go upwards and downwards.
● Fixed an issue that caused the reticle to appear even when in situations where you are not able to shoot.
● Your character now uses a different animation when in crouch stance while holding a melee weapon.
● Made improvements to the reload animations for the M249.
● Made improvements to the reload animations for the P1911.
● The muzzle flash is now brighter than before and is now visible from a longer distance.
Sound
● There are now sound effect differences for supersonic and non-supersonic bullet speeds.
● Made adjustments so that the sound of the bullet flying through air doesn’t play when shots are fired from a short distance from your character.
● You can now figure out what floor the opponents are at just by listening to their footsteps.
● Adjusted the firing sound of the SKS in mid to long range combat.
● Adjusted the volume of the footsteps.
Miscellaneous
● We have opened a test server to better manage our content and secure stability for our live environment updates.
● Additional in-game texts have been localized.
Bug Fixes
● Fixed a bug that caused some buildings to not be visible at long distance.
● Fixed a bug that caused weapons to clip through walls.
● Fixed a bug that caused the icons for certain “pants” items to not appear correctly.
● Fixed a bug that caused the PLAYERUNKNOWN shoes to not render properly.
● Fixed a bug that caused the hit effects to play at random.
● Fixed a bug that caused bald characters to have hair.
● Fixed a bug that caused disconnects after 5 minutes into a match.
● Fixed a bug that caused a knocked out player to be ejected in front of a vehicle. If knocked out in a vehicle, you will now be ejected to the side.
If the above patch notes have inspired you to finally give Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds a shot, make sure that you can run the game first by looking through our coverage of the game’s PC system requirements.