On September 12th, the patch notes regarding the September Update were posted on the official PUBG Steam Community. The post informs of an update to be on the Test servers on Tuesday early morning PDT, which includes some new features, bug fixes, and improvements.

The post mentions, before talking about the patch notes, a couple of features that devs have been working on that have been discussed in the community. Vaulting and climbing are still in progress due to a number of technical difficulties. Players who have been waiting for so long to experience this new feature will have to wait a little bit longer, as Bluehole is planning to test it sometime in early November, or perhaps even before November, on test servers if necessary. It may be possible that we will finally see this feature when the game moves out of Early Access before the end of Q4 2017.

AFK players will no longer earn BPs. The post also promises that Bluehole will monitor and try to improve the current system.

The core subjects of this patch notes are the ones that have already been mentioned briefly in previous posts on the official Twitter and Facebook pages; foggy weather and a new weapon called the Mini-14. This weather condition will hinder the players’ sight on the map, leading to low visibility. Although it will have a low probability to occur in the main server, it will occur at a higher rate in the Test server for the purpose of testing out the effect.

The new weapon called the Mini-14 will be added to the Test server as well. This new firearm is a lightweight and compact 5.56 semi-automatic marksman rifle. The rifle is seemingly a wide use SR that uses sniper rifle attachments for both the muzzle and magazine slots, and any type of optic sight. Though the damage is lower than other DMR’s, this gap is compensated by a very high muzzle velocity and low bullet drop.

A number of tweaks to the gameplay will also be introduced in the Test server; the balance of several weapons such as the crossbow and tommy gun has been adjusted. Animations and the balance of throwable items have also been adjusted.

The Test servers will be up for at least 2 days for testing out newly-implemented features, and the patch will be live on the main server later this week.

More details about the September Update can be found in the following full text of the patch notes.

Early Access - September Update

▣ 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
- The foggy weather effect will hinder player sight on the map. This weather effect has a low probability to occur
- 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 Crosshair 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 (i.e. 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

▣ New Item

▶ Added a new weapon, the Mini-14. The Mini-14 is a lightweight and compact 5.56 semi-automatic marksman rifle
- The weapon uses sniper rifle attachments for both the muzzle and magazine slots, and can take any type of optic sight
- 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:
- Increased the Crossbow reload speed by 35%
- 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
- 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
- Decreased fuse time of the Flash Grenade to 2.5 seconds
- Increased the lethal and injury ranges of the Frag Grenade
- Improved the animation for throwing grenades to allow for increased speeds and more accurate trajectories, but decreased visual trajectory distance of throwables
- Cooking of grenades is now manual (Default key set to R)
- You may now toggle the throwing mode between overhead and roll (Default key set to Right Mouse Click)
- 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 canceling 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)