Bluehole Studio has announced that the September update for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will go live on test servers today, and revealed its complete changelog. According to the release notes, this update improves performance on low-end PCs by optimizing buildings, optimizes shadows (resulting in better performance on a variety of PC configurations), as well as client and server performance when there are multiple vehicles in a close vicinity.

This update also adds a Foggy weather. According to the developers, the foggy weather effect will hinder player sight on the map, though this weather effect has a low probability to occur. Moreover, this patch enhances graphics of the sky in pre-existing weather effects and adds a new town, East of Stalber.

As previously noted, the September update adds the Mini-14. The Mini-14 is a lightweight and compact 5.56 semi-automatic marksman rifle. In addition, this update adds new features, new key binds and new options.

This update will be auto-downloaded once it’s become available, and you can read its full release notes below.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds – September Update Release Notes:

Client Optimization

• Optimized shadows
• Improved performance on low-end PCs by optimizing buildings
• Optimized client and server performance when there are multiple vehicles in a close vicinity
• Optimized UI

World

• Added Foggy weather 
  o The foggy weather effect will hinder player sight on the map. This weather effect has a low probability to occur 
  o In order to test the weather effect, the foggy weather will have a higher chance to occur during test server gameplay, but will be reduced for Live servers
• Enhanced graphics of the sky in pre-existing weather effects
• Added a new town, East of Stalber

UI/UX

• Added new Option to change Cross-hair color
• Added new Double Tap feature in control options for leaning (Default keys set to Q and E)
• Added new option to improve the visual effect of going from free look back to character’s line of sight
• Added new key binds when using Consumables
• Teammates’ names are now representative of their current postures (IE Standing, Crouching, Prone, etc)
• Added new key bind to mark your current position on the map (Default key set to Insert)
• Added a new key bind to center the map around the character’s current position (Default key set to Space)
• Added a new key bind to use the Consumables in the order of Med Kit, First Aid Kit, and Bandage (Default key set to “-“)
• Added a new feature to reset the zeroing distance using Mouse wheel click
• Adjusted the position of the Report window
• Added a new feature in Settings, called “Inventory screen character render” to turn off character rendering in Inventory screen to improve performance.

New Item

• Added a new weapon, the Mini-14. The Mini-14 is a lightweight and compact 5.56 semi-automatic marksman rifle
  o The weapon uses sniper rifle attachments for both the muzzle and magazine slots, and can take any type of optic sight
  o This weapon has lower damage stats than other DMR’s, which is compensated by very high muzzle velocity and low bullet drop

Gameplay

• Distance at which shadows are rendered are now synchronized across all graphics settings to ensure fair play
• Characters who are knocked out while underwater will now have a breath gauge as well as take additional damage over time
• Adjusted the balance of several weapons:
  o Increased the Crossbow reload speed by 35%
  o Tommy gun has been removed from Care Packages and become a world spawn. It now supports attachments such as the Silencer, Vertical Foregrip, and Magazines
  o Horizontal recoil scale has been clamped for greater consistency for weapons with high horizontal recoils
• You may now holster grenades by switching to another weapon or unarmed state unless the grenades have already been cooked
• The firing mode of weapons will now remain consistent with the firing mode that was selected, after dropping a weapon and picking it back up again
• Adjusted the collision damage of Motorcycles

Actions

• Recoil animations are updated for all weapons
• Adjusted animations and balance of throwables
  o Decreased fuse time of the Flash Grenade to 2.5 seconds
  o Increased the lethal and injury ranges of the Frag Grenade
  o Improved the animation for throwing grenades to allow for increased speeds and more accurate trajectories, but decreased visual trajectory distance of throwables
  o Cooking of grenades is now manual (Default key set to R)
  o You may now toggle the throwing mode between overhead and roll (Default key set to Right Mouse Click)
  o The movement speed of a character affects the trajectory of throwables
• Improved leaning animation; leaning on the left side to expose less of the body 
• Sprinting will no longer prevent regeneration of breath gauge and will stop leaning state automatically
• You may change your stance while reloading without cancelling the reload

Sounds

• Added new sounds when using Consumables
• Adjusted the audible ranges of reloading and window breaking
• Added a new sound for collisions between vehicles and characters
• Added new sound for the animation of removing the grenade safety pin

Bug Fixes

• Characters that fall or glitch underneath the map will now be reset to the ground automatically
• Fixed a bug where FOV slider value would be improperly set inside of vehicles in FPP mode, regardless of FOV slider setting
• Fixed a bug resulting in clients freezing when changing controls in the options
• Corrected the descriptions of certain weapon attachments
• Fixed animation bugs of other characters after reconnecting to a game
• Fixed several bugs related to the Spectator mode
• Fixed a bug of the breath gauge appearing at zero at the start of the game
• Reloading will now cancel if a character loots an item with Right Click during reload
• Fixed a bug with the honking sound remaining persistent when opening the map or performing other actions while honking
• You may no longer set different features on a single key bind in the Options
• Fixed a graphic bug of the Magazine position on the weapon in the Inventory screen when switching to a different weapon

Others

• Revised the BP methodology to prevent BP farming and idle users from gaining BP
• Added FPP Leaderboard for all regions with FPP
• NVIDIA ShadowPlay Highlights now works on Window 7 and Window 8 (However, if Windows Aero is disabled it may not work)