Latest PUBG update adds a new sniper rifle, sick motorcycle stunts—now live [Updated]

News
By published

Well, that didn't take long.

Update 2: Well, that didn't take long. Despite Bluehole's earlier suggestion that PUBG's second monthly update would be postponed to next week (as reported below), it's now live on stable servers. 

Hop below to learn what the latest update brings with it, and check out the extensive list of patch notes over here. 

Update 1: 

As revealed earlier this week, and as reported below, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds is set to welcome a new sniper rifle, new stock attachments, and new motorbike physics, among other things, in its second monthly update. These changes were expected to give live this morning, however have now been pushed back till sometime "next week" as a result of "several major issues with the Test Server build." 

Taking to Twitter, the game's official account sent this out earlier today:

Developer Bluehole continued to say it'll provide "more updates on an expected ETA" for the update "early next week", before offering an apology and thanking players for their patience. 

A subsequent tweet adds: "PSA We'll be leaving the Test Server online, and continue pushing updates to it until the patch drops next week." 

We'll update this post as soon as Bluehole has revised the update's launch time.  

Original story:  

Inspired by Brendan Greene's recent Mod Hall of Fame inductee Battle Royale, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has impressed since arriving in Early Access two months ago. Besides doubling its playerbase and hitting two million sales inside its first four weeks, it also raised over $220,000 for charity shortly thereafter. 

The MMO-meet-survival game has now revealed the patch notes for its second monthly update—which will hit stable servers on Thursday, May 25 at 1am PST/9am BST and everything else in between.  

Similar to previous updates, the latest list of tweaks and adjustments is fairly extensive. It can be viewed in its entirety over here, however highlights include the addition of the VSS suppressed sniper rifle with a built-in 4X scope. Found only in care packages, it takes 9mm ammo. 

In addition to a new, sidecar-less motorcycle, the update also introduces air control of motorbikes, which prompted PlayerUnknown himself to post this earlier today:

God willing, Battlegrounds will become a 100-person extreme sports survival game. We look forward to your forward and backflips.

Balance-wise, the update reduces the Vector and Winchester's power, while slightly increasing the AKM's bullet damage. As for stock attachments, a cheek pad can now be added to the SKS sniper rifle, a tactical stock can now be implemented to the M416 Vector, and modified recoils can now be applied to the AKM, SCAR, M16 and HK416. A new scope rendering method has also been introduced, allowing for greater aiming precision and showcased here. 

Again, a number UI and rendering issues, as well as a host of bug fixes have been ironed out in PUBG's second Early Access update. Speaking directly to lag issues and the quality of its servers, however, the game's creators note the following: 

"I have seen a lot of speculation about the cause of the lag some of you experience. One of the more popular theories is that we run our games on potato quality servers. I would like to put this theory to bed by telling you our servers run on the highest possible spec machines that AWS [Amazon Web Services] offer. 

"We are currently in the middle of profiling the servers to attempt to track down the cause of the lag, but as I have said before, this will take us time to complete, so I ask for your patience while we work to improve server performance for all players. 

"While [the] next monthly update will be focused on improving server performance, the optimisation process won't stop there, and we will continue to improve performance of the servers all the way through Early Access."

Playerunknown Battlegrounds' second update goes live on Thursday, May 25.

Joe Donnelly
Deputy Editor, PC Gaming Show