Electronic Arts and DICE have revealed the full release notes for the Battlefield 5 Chapter 1: Overture update. The changelog for this major update is huge and details every change that has been made to it.

According to the release notes, this patch adds the last single-player War Story, The Last Tiger, adds a Practice Range, and adds the Panzerstorm multiplayer map in which players will take part in the first major tank battle of the war, larger than any that came before.

Moreover, and as we’ve already reported, this patch come with some real-time ray tracing RTX improvements. More specifically, it  makes stability improvements while running the game with DXR Ray Tracing on, improves performance of several components of the ray tracing implementation, improves ray tracing performance against foliage and vegetation, removes inactive geometry from ray traced scenes and fixes medium quality setting not applying correctly.

Last but not least, the Battlefield 5 Chapter 1: Overture update comes with some PC-specific fixes/tweaks. For example, it adds Smooth Rotation option to the Camera tab in the Spectator Options, makes TAA improvements, fixes an issue where quick keyboard taps would get missed if both press and release
happened in the same update tick and more.

This update will be auto-downloaded from Origin the next time you launch its client, and you can find its full release notes below.

Battlefield 5 Chapter 1: Overture Update Release Notes

New Features

• New War Story: The Last Tiger
• New Multiplayer Map: Panzerstorm
• Practice Range

Top Issue Fixes and Changes

• Fixed a bug where weapons would stay locked even if the player had reached the required level to obtain them.
• Improvements for the issue involving infinite loading screens. Should be drastically reduced with this update.
• Fixed an issue where vehicle passenger gunner turret animations would not align with where the player was aiming.
• Players no longer get into a soft hang when viewing assignments in-game.
• Made tweaks to the Conquest Soft Catch-up mechanics. The catch-up will now only be activated when the losing team is very far behind instead of rounds that are fairly close. We think that this will make matches more fair in general, while at the same time making the matches a bit more exciting if the skill gap between the teams is too big.
• We are adjusting the amount of ammunition given to airplane forward firing machine guns and cannons. With fast resupply we feel like we can reduce the ammo in each weapon so attrition becomes a factor over a long period of flying. This also allows us to use ammo load as a balancing mechanic for some weapons like the 8x LMGs on the Spitfire or the explosive cannon rounds on the BF109.
• Airplane Zooming in 1P will now give 2.5x zoom, allowing for superior scouting of the battlefield and aiming at long range or small targets. This should help planes like fighters from be more connected to the ground combat.
• A reduction to the damage airplane parts take from LMGs and a buff to the healt or they will need to equip higher caliber, but lower rate of fire weapons to do effective part damage. This should deepen the experience in dogfighting and plane customization.
• The Stuka 37mm cannons have been adjusted to be more effective in direct fire against vehicles and less effective in splash against infantry. This brings them more in line with their original intent. Additionally a delay on dropping bombs that was unique to the Stuka has been cut from 0.3 sec to 0.1 sec (there’s an arm on this bomber that swings down to drop the bomb, we sped that up).This should make bombing from the Stuka more accurate.
  • The 8x MG specialization on the Spitfire has a new overheat behavior. These weapons offer great burst damage, but begin to overheat quickly, with their rate of fire dropping substantially in sustained fire.
• The BF109’s Minengeschoss has seen a rebalance towards its intended role. The weapon now performs similarly to a single default cannon against fighters, but has seen a damage reduction against bombers. It retains an effective splash damage against infantry, though at a lower damage rate than previously. Combined with the increased 1P zoom, BF109s with this round should be able to make targeted strafing passes on single targets, but no longer be able to sweep an area of multiple targets.
• AA tanks were too vulnerable when engaging infantry, making them an unattractive vehicle when aircraft were not active. Reduced the damage AA tanks take to their turret to be better in line with side hits in order to make them more survivable. Their
  damage against infantry has also been slightly increased.
• Tweaked the JU-88 bomber to only carry one 1,000kg bomb and reduced the rate of fire when dropping the 16x50kg bombs. This ensures that the bombs have a larger spread when hitting the ground.
• Changed the Stuka damage model to be closer to bombers, to improve its intended ground attack role.
• Players occupying top gunner positions in land vehicles are now able to duck down and become somewhat protected from incoming shots. While ducking, top gunners are still able “blind-fire” the machine gun.
• The automatic spawn when round starts will be disabled in all game modes (except Final Stand). This change has been made to not force spawn players that temporary went “afk” during round transition and are not back in their seats at start.
• The icon above the bomb carriers in Airborne and Frontlines will no longer be visible.
  We’ve decided this based on community feedback. Note that the icon will still be visible for a brief moment on pickup as it is mentioned by audio.
• Panzerfausts are now designed to be simple ranged damage against tanks, and have been adjusted to have less spikey damage. The previous damage model relied heavily on the angle of attack, which played against infantry since infantry rarely can pick their
  angle of attack against tanks. Poor hits could gravely punish the shooter with as low as just 5 damage for a hit. The new model has reduced the maximum damage output of the projectile, especially against the rear of tanks, however it now guarantees far better damage for poor hits, around 2-3x more damage. For example, the previous poor hit that would give just 5 damage will now give 15 damage. In addition, Panzerfausts are now extremely potent against the parts of the tank, meaning that they will more easily disable turrets, tracks, and engines and give the attacking infantry a boost in fighting the vehicle. Note that a part disable is not guaranteed with a hit.
  Overall, the maximum damage of the Panzerfaust is going to drop. In all normal cases the Panzerfaust will take more hits to kill all tanks, making tanks more survivable. We’ve dropped the damage from nearly 50 to the side of a medium tank to around 25. From the rear you used to be able to 2 shot the tank, now it’s at least 3 hits.
• Angled damage is now better exposed to players, with a critical hit (headshot) hitmarkers playing whenever a player makes a hit at an optimal angle or against a weak part like a turret.
• Increased the direct hit damage of Stationary and Half Track mounted AT guns. Being exposed in these guns is a heavy disadvantage, and a higher amount of damage against tanks is required to balance the risk and reward.
• LMGs and Soldier Guns have been doing more damage to airplanes than intended. We have reduced the damage of soldier weapons against airplanes, so that they’re a threat to – but not a killer of – airplanes.
• The first version of Vehicle Customization is rolling out for all players, with skins for tanks as well as skins and nose art for airplanes. More to come in the future!
• Reworked the Panzerfaust to be less effective on rear shots on vehicles. Armor angle on vehicles now matter less, and the Panzerfaust now deals a more consistent amount of damage to vehicles. Panzerfausts also deal more systemic part damage,
  allowing them to be used more tactically, taking out engines, tracks and turrets, etc.

Soldier Fixes and Tweaks

• Fixed an issue where the third-person soldier animations would not properly function when going into the wounded state and result into soldiers weirdly snapping.
• Ragdolls no longer have strange movement after being dead for a certain amount of time.
• Fixed an issue where the soldiers would be getting an input delay (stuck in place) after the revive was completed. This change should improve the responsiveness of revives for both the reviver and the revivee.
• Aiming down sight (ADS) and moving on uneven terrain at the same time no longer kicks the player out of ADS (more specifically when using the “Custom Stock” Specialization).
• Added procedural face animations for voice overs.
• Improved the soldiers’ left hand animations when reloading side arms while coming out of a crouched position.
• The Tanker class is no longer able to build Fortifications faster than the Support class.
• Fixed an issue where the soldiers would move up and down slowly while down on uneven terrain.
• Fixed an issue where players would get pushed by teammates when going prone.
• Fixed an issue where soldiers could fall through the ground if they got revived.
• Fixed a legacy and common issue where soldier jumps could get interrupted when trying to jump over obstacles (sometimes very small).
• Made various vault detection improvements on more complex assets such as rocks.
• Fixed an issue where reloading would be interrupted when vaulting through a window while the reload animation still played.
• Reduced stand-to-prone firing and aiming restriction by 100ms to match the soldier animations when transitioning from stand to prone.
• Fixed an issue where aiming would be slowed down and limited after getting revived.
• Fixed an issue where sliding could be triggered with a single press instead of a double-tap.
• Tweaked the sliding animation in first person to match the duration of the sliding in third person more accurately.

Vehicles

• When using the Danger Ping feature in a vehicle, all other occupants of the vehicle will now see the ping as if they were in your squad.
• Fixed the rain weathering effects on the Spitfire.
• Changed airplane damage effects to better visually represent both the health of the airplane and engine systemic damage.
• Added tire trails from the wheels of the Staghound T17E1.
• Removed an exploit where tanks could fire shells faster than intended.
• Players are now able to repair disabled parts of a tank from the outside, even if the tank is at full health.
• Fixed an issue when a player would “Jeep Stuff” the Universal Carrier from behind and it would not take any damage.
• Corrected the firing sounds on the Stuka B-2.
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to exit the stationary PAK40 and 6 Pounder by moving backwards.
• Fixed an issue where anti-tank half-track vehicles had over-sensitive aiming.
• Fixed the launch velocity of tank flare launchers to make the flares shoot further and higher, increasing the area in which they spot and making them more useful.
• Decreased the heat threshold for the top grenade launcher on the Sturmtiger. After overheating, the grenade launcher now needs to cool down completely before it can be fired again.
• Increased the launch velocity of the top grenade launcher on the Sturmtiger, for increased range.
• Added reload time to bombs and rockets, after planes re-supply, so that they’re not instantly available after a resupply.
• Refactored flak to deal more consistent damage vs. large planes, and slightly less vs. smaller planes.
• Moved aircraft resupply points further away from the infantry combat areas on most maps, to make Attrition a bigger factor for bomber planes.
• Reduced the explosion radius of the GR21 rockets on the BF-109, to reduce its effectiveness against ground targets.
• Reduced the damage of GR21 and RP-3 rockets on the BF-109 and Spitfire vs. medium and heavy tanks.
• Changed the Stuka damage model to be closer to bombers, to improve its survivability vs. most forms of damage, and strengthen its intended ground attack role.
• Reduced the number of light bombs carried by the Ju-88 A to 16 and also reduced the rate at which they drop from the plane.
• Reduced the number of 1,000kg bombs carried by the Ju088A from 2 to 1.
• Fixed an issue preventing wheel systemic damage to the Staghound T17E1 from explosions.
• Changed crosshair in third person when using bombs on Spitfire and Bf-109 planes.
• Fixed the Flakpanzer IV Zimmerit Specialization which wasn’t functioning properly.
• Fixed the Panzer IV Zimmerit Specialization which wasn’t properly visible on the exterior of the tank.
• Fixed some issues with the third person FOV setting on vehicles.
• Fixed issues with the tank Field Repair Specialization not repairing turret damage consistently.
• Changed the MCLC Specialization on British tanks from a weapon slot to fire when pressing the equipment 3 button instead.
• Fixed that the Staghound T17E1 didn’t consistently explode immediately when destroyed.
• Fixed some vehicle overlay diagrams that showed incorrect layouts.
• Fixed that the Valentine Mk1 AA Specializations Field Repair and Emergency Repair had swapped functionality.
• Fixed strange behaviors when vehicles had towable weapons hitched.
• Fixed some airplane Specialization trees that had incorrectly accessible paths.
• Lowered the health of stationary weapons.
• When using the Spotting Scope specialization in light tanks, a sound is now played when an enemy is spotted.
• Greatly reduced damage of aircraft light bombs vs. tanks.
• Increased the direct hit damage of Stationary and Half Track mounted AT guns.
  Being exposed in these guns is a heavy disadvantage, and a higher amount of damage against tanks is required to balance the risk and reward.
• Changed the vehicle “Critical Hit” indicator (the orange hit indicator shown when you cause damage to a vehicle) to more consistently display when causing damage at good angles to tank armor.
• Fixed an issue with airplanes sometimes not exploding properly when crashing.
• The wingtips on the Spitfire MkVb now properly become “clipped” when using the Improved Control Surfaces Specialization.
• Fixed an issue occasionally causing damage to tanks to incorrectly cause engine damage that couldn’t be repaired.
• Added a reload animation when using stationary and towable AT weapons.
• Fixed an issue preventing squad spawning on the Blenheim airplanes.
• Fixed an issue causing the Churchill Gun Carrier zoom view to be incorrectly offset from the weapon position.
• Fixed an issue causing some towable weapons to unspawn while being used or towed.
• Fixed an issue when spawning into vehicle gunner positions that caused the weapon to appear disconnected from the player.
• Fixed an issue causing an empty third weapon slot to be available on some tanks.

Weapons and Gadgets

• Added a confirmation sound when successfully spotting with the Binoculars.
• Smoke Grenade Launcher now properly blocks spotting (including from suppression).
• The M30 Drilling reload animation should now always play when reloading.
• Added the Predator and Urban Blue customizations for the M1897.
• Players can now disable enemy placed AT Mines and Dynamite by interacting with them when playing as a class that supports it.
• When using the Chromed Finish skin on Turner SMLE the textures on it would flicker. No more of that!
• Improved the scopes by reducing the clipping in sights.
• Fixed an issue where you could reload the Gewehr M95 without having to play the reload animation.
• Players are no longer able to instantly fire rocket launchers when switching weapons.
• FG-42 iron sights are no longer misaligned when in ADS.
• MP34 Lattey sights are no longer misaligned when in ADS.
• Throwing knife maximum damage range reduced to 6.5m (from 13m).
• Throwing knife headshot multiple was incorrect and has now been increased to 2x (was 1x). This means a headshot should always guarantee a kill at any distance.
• Throwing knife maximum capacity reduced to two from six.
• Decreased M1928A1 maximum damage to 25.1 (Was 30).
• Increased the 3 hit kill range of the Gewehr 1-5 to 30 meters (25 meters).
• Increased maximum damage for the Sturmgewehr 1-5 and StG 44 to 25.1 (Was 24).
• Reduced the range at which the Turner SMLE can kill with one headshot and one body shot to 30 meters (Was 35 meters).
• Increased the 4 hit kill range of all assault rifles, LMGs, MMGs and SMGs to 10 meters (Was 9 meters) to make close quarter damage more reliable.
• Increased all SMG 5 hit kill range to 30 meters (Was 25 meters).
• Slightly extended pistol damage dropoff distances.
  Bolt actions no longer deal slightly reduced damage when hitting the lower body or upper arms.

Recoil

• Increased horizontal recoil of the KE7 to 0.45 (Was 0.36).
• Increased horizontal recoil of the M1907 SF to 0.41 (Was 0.39).
• Decreased horizontal recoil of the STEN to 0.38 (Was 0.4) and increased the efficacy of the Ported Barrel specialization.

Specializations

• Increased the effect of the Slings and Swivels Specialization. Switching to your primary weapon is now an additional 50 ms faster for all weapons and firing after sprinting is allowed an additional 16 ms earlier for bolt-action rifles, assault rifles,
  semi-automatic rifles, and SLRs.
• Changed the specialization for the KE7. Recoil Buffer has been removed. Quick Aim has been added. Specialization tree has been reordered.

Reload

• Increased the reload speed of the KE7. Base reload time is now 3.55 s (Was 3.75 s).
• Increased the reload speed of the MG34 with the double drum magazine. Tactical reload is now 3.7 s (Was 4 s) and empty reload is 5.083 s (Was 5.5 s).
• Increased the reload speed of the M1907 SF. Tactical reload is now 2.7 s (Was 2.9 s) and empty reload is 3.3 s (Was 3.5 s).

Miscellaneous

• Improved sustained fire accuracy of SMGs while aimed and stationary.
• Decreased sustained fire accuracy of assault rifles while aimed and moving.
• Increased muzzle velocity of all SMGs as follows:
  o MP34: 495 m/s (Was 450 m/s)
  o MP34 (High Velocity Bullets): 560 m/s (Was 520 m/s)
  o STEN: 495 m/s (Was 430 m/s) o MP40: 455 m/s (Was 400 m/s) o
  EMP: 420 m/s (Was 380 m/s) o MP28: 345 m/s (Was 320 m/s) o
  Suomi KP/-31: 330 m/s (Was 300 m/s) o M1928A1: 330 m/s (Was
  280 m/s)
• Decreased drag of SMG bullets from to 0.005 (Was 0.007) for regular bullets and 0.0035 (Was 0.005) for High Velocity Bullets.

Maps and Modes

• Removed some spawns that were out of bounds on Rotterdam when playing Grand Operations.
• Tweaked the metal beams on Devastation where players previously could get stuck.
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to spawn on Arras when playing the Final Stand mode.
• In Airborne, the bomb no longer auto detonates if one of the carriers does not advance towards the objective while being close to the other bomb carrier. We have this functionality to prevent players from taking the bomb and not playing the
  objective. Added collision near the E flag close to the stage on Devastation where players previously could get stuck behind the scene.
• Enabled destruction on the objects inside the control tower on Aerodrome.
• Added more spawn points on Conquest, Domination, and Breakthrough on all maps.
• Removed a spawn point that was out of bounds on Fjell 652 when playing Frontlines.
• Fixed an issue on Airborne and Frontlines where the bomb could spawn below the ground.
• Frontlines on Twisted Steel: Increased respawn timer on tanks, from 30 seconds to 90 seconds.
• Delayed all airplane spawns in pre-round by 30 seconds as an intermediate measure to prevent bombers spawn killing players.
• Breakthrough on Arras: Increased the initial ticket count from 200 to 250 and increased the spawn threshold on all sectors.
• Breakthrough on Twisted Steel: Increased initial ticket count and increased the spawn threshold in the first sector.
• Breakthrough on Fjell 652: Increased the spawn threshold in the first sector.

UI/HUD

• Added kill log icon for kills where the projectile first traversed a material before killing the player.
• Customized vehicles, and not the default setup, are now shown in the progression hub instead.
• The character is now facing the camera when applying facepaints.
• Fixed an issue where the Company in the Frontend could show corrupted graphics in some cases.
• Players should no longer see artifacts on the Company in the main menu.
• Alpha and Beta Dog Tags should now be properly unlocked for players that earned them.
• Players can now properly see the number of players in a friend’s squad in the social hub.
• Made various fixes to Special Assignments.
• Items should no longer appear blurry when getting new shipments in the armory.
• The in-game chat log will now stay hidden even if the player joins a squad and the player has chosen to hide the chat log.
• The game doesn’t switch to default button mappings while the soldier is dead (death experience and deploy screens) anymore.
• Fixed an issue where the social widget was overlapping on the end of round screen.
• Iron sights zoom level now properly shows as 1.5x instead of 1x.

Options Aiming:

• Implemented Uniform Aiming for vehicles (adjustable via the Advanced Control Options screen).
• Implemented adjustable Vertical Aim ratio for soldier and vehicle aiming for mouse and stick aiming (adjustable via the Advanced Control Options screen).
• Made controller stick input curve and aim speed tweaks for vehicle aiming.
• Added Options for setting custom colors and glow on the Reflex/Nydar sights and colors for Lattey sights.

War Stories

• The Freedom Star medal is now properly awarded once players collect all 40 Letters. The Distinguished Intelligence Service medal is now properly awarded once players collect all 40 Letters.
• Improved the transition to gameplay on the Prologue when playing in 4K.
• Improved the ragdolls behavior during the Prologue mission.

Spectator

• Using the “Invert Vertical Look” option no longer causes the controller to lose functionality.
• The top gunner in the Panzer IV now appears in the correct position.
• Fixed stuttering when spectating the Blenheim Mk IF.
  • Made various text fixes.
• • Added Camera Sway options to the Camera tab in the Spectator Options. These options can be used with the director and free cameras. o Enable Camera Sway – turn on/off camera sway. o Camera Sway Duration – how long it takes the camera
  to sway to the selected angle.
  o Camera Sway Angle – how far the camera can sway from the center.
• Added a Look at Camera to Free Camera mode. When in the Free Camera mode, this can be turned using the “Look at Player” option in the Camera tab of the Spectator Options or via the input specified on the icon on the bottom right of the UI.
  When enabled, this will cause the free camera to automatically rotate and “look at” the selected player. The camera can still be moved by the user when this is on and will orbit around that player. The camera can also be rotated manually via input and
  when any rotation input stops; the camera will smoothly rotate back to looking at the selected player.

Stability

• Fixed a crash that could occur when changing the soldiers’ appearances.
• Many other stability improvements

PC Specific Improvements

• When running VOIP at higher volumes the signal is no longer distorted.
• Fixed an issue where quick keyboard taps would get missed if both press and release happened in the same update tick.
• Controller stick and keyboard arrows now work properly when navigating the Calibration screen.
• Made TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) improvements: fixed broken motion vectors, which reduces blurriness on vegetation.
• Origin friends presence is correctly updated for newly added friends.
• The push-to-talk button now only activates that functionality and does not interfere with other in-game systems.
• The social hub no longer closes down if you invite a friend to your squad.
• Squad leaders are now able to leave and create new squads.
• Squad members are now able to invite other players into their squad if the previous squad leader leaves.
• If the player cancels during matchmaking, the game will no longer be stuck in a cancelling state.
• Added Smooth Rotation option to the Camera tab in the Spectator Options. Smooth Rotation is an alternate control method for rotating the director and free cameras when using a mouse. When the right mouse button is held down, moving the mouse further in the desired direction will cause the camera to move faster. Stopping mouse movement while the right mouse button is held down will maintain the current speed. Setting Smooth Rotation to On will allow the camera to have much smoother rotation movement while using the mouse compared to the default rotation movement(Smooth Rotation Off). This can be used with the director and free cameras.

Button Mapping

• PC: players can now use the keyboard arrow keys for aiming too (both soldier and vehicles) and shooting (Spacebar for vehicles, Right Ctrl for soldier).
• Fixed an issue where binding keyboard buttons on aim/look actions had extremely high sensitivity.
• Fixed an issue with the options screens sometimes showing incorrect option descriptions when hovering with the mouse.

RTX (DXR Ray Tracing)

• Made stability improvements while running the game with DXR Ray Tracing on.
• Improved performance of several components of the ray tracing implementation.
• Improved ray tracing performance against foliage and vegetation.
• Using frame buffer data, where applicable, to increase overall ray tracing quality.
• Removed inactive geometry from ray traced scenes.
• Fixed medium quality setting not applying correctly.

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email