A new update went live on PUBG today, and it looks solid for the most part. The big feature is dynamic weather coming to the remastered Erangel. Matches start overcast, but the weather will quickly deteriorates as wind, rain, hail, and fog move across the map as matches play out. Watch it in action below.
Looks good, right? I’m sure the folks behind PUBG wouldn’t get rid of the Erangel only matchmaking option after adding this…
Changes to NA region matchmaking also went live as the devs are removing the ‘Featured Map’ option. You’ll need a little luck or time to check the dynamic weather on Erangel. The map will now be placed in the ‘Random Map’ rotation along with Miramar, Sanhok, and Vikendi. I’m all for bringing the maps together, but doing it now after another big feature update to Erangel isn’t the best move. Give folks a couple of weeks to try out the new changes and then make the change.
PUBG Corp. defended the move as a way to “ensure a smooth matchmaking experience.”
“While the “Featured Map” queue has thrived for the most part, some players have experienced difficulty finding matches in the “Random Map” pool, which has also led to some frustration due to lack of map variety,” the devs write in the patch notes for update 4.2.
Now, each map will have the same chance of being selected via the ‘Random Map’ option.
A good compromise would be to give Ernagel extra weighting for the next couple of weeks so we can see the new weather changes.
What else is in update 4.2
While dynamic weather is the headline feature, there are a lot of solid quality of life improvements here too. There’s a new master volume preview that lets you tinker with your sound before you get into a match. I hope PUBG takes it a step further one day and adds in the audio feature from Hunt: Showdown that lets you hear different guns from different distances to help improve your gameplay. Here’s a short video of Jackfrags showing it off.
The HUD is also getting a redesign with a focus on visualizing armor health and backpack capacity. Weapon fire modes are also shown via icons now instead of text.
The devs also tamped down the ambient wind noise on Vikendi.
There are many more small changes/fixes you can read over at PUBG’s website. Overall, the update sounds solid. I’m not a huge fan of removing the ‘Featured Map’ option right now. Even with the matchmaking reason, there should be an emphasis (at least temporarily) on whatever map gets a big new feature.
We’ll see how many times the game dumps me on Miramar before Erangel finally pops up.