The new PUBG update overhauls the weapon meta in Krafton’s battle royale game, transforming attachments, gun handling, vehicular combat, and the safety radius in Deston to make everything – from scoring kills to waiting out your opponents – that much more difficult.
Let’s go from the top. If like basically everyone else you’ve always favoured the vertical foregrip, chances are you might need to change tact, as several of its rival attachments have been tweaked and buffed to rebalance the meta. The standard thumbgrip now handles better thanks to an increased ADS speed, whereas the angled foregrip has significantly improved recoil control. The lightweight grip is starting to look like the best overall bet going forward, with +20% recoil recovery added after each shot.
“The vertical foregrip shows strong performance and receives much love from our players,” explains PUBG Dev Team. “However, we didn’t want to sustain a meta where everyone uses the same attachment and repeating, similar combat styles every match. Therefore, we’ve decided to buff other attachments based on their individual, unique traits.”
And speaking of altering the meta, if you think jumping in a vehicle is a surefire way of bagging kills, you might have to think again. Weapon recoil while firing from the passenger seat of a vehicle has been increased by 10%, and if you’re the one behind the wheel, you can’t reload your handgun and steer at the same time any more – any steering will instantly cancel the reload animation.
Plus, the reload time has increased by 50%, and recoil has gone up by 20%. Basically, scoring a kill while driving is out of the question, good news if you prefer to travel on-foot and you’re sick of getting gunned down from passing vehicles, bad news if you like pulling off the occasional drive-by.
The M16 and MK47 have received some much-needed attention, and can now take the 8x and 15x scopes to compensate for the fact that they have no full-auto modes. Previously only suitable for mid-range encounters, since they dropped in accuracy over distance, and couldn’t hold off enemies at close quarters, this has the potential to make both guns into extremely solid all-rounders.
And you’re going to need them, because the tried-and-true strategy of skirting the safety radius and waiting for the blue zone to gobble up your opponents just got less reliable – or at least, it did on Deston. Having noticed that players were dying in the blue more often in Deston than any other map, PUBG Dev Team has significantly upped the radius rate, meaning the safety circle, though it will still get smaller in each phase, won’t decrease in size so sharply any more. This will give your enemies more room to hide, forcing you to leave cover and go hunting for them rather than waiting for the blue to wipe them out.
The new PUBG update also brings a variety of small quality of life and bug fixes, including a number being added to the starting plane, so you can see for certain how many people are left on board before you make your jump. You can see the other QoL changes here.
With the PUBG meta undergoing a transformation, make sure you check out our guide to all the PUBG weapons. You can also take a detailed look at every PUBG map to help plan your drops, and pick up some vital tips from our PUBG guide to help secure that poultry-based evening meal.