Playerunknown's Battlegrounds brings dynamic weather to new Erangel
It's back!
Ever-changing weather has drifted over the lovely revamped version of Erangel in Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, with all manner of precipitation adding an extra touch of drama to the stag & hen weekends. The previous version of Erangel had dynamic weather and I had half-worried it might not carry over to the new but naw, we're good. I still miss Erangel's old full-time fog variant, even if I do accept why it had to die, so I'm glad to see this return in today's update.
The remastered Erangel won't always have dynamic weather. You will still see glorious sunny days (taps aff, lads). But the 'overcast' variant in the rotation is now set to dynamic weather, with different conditions rolling in for a few minutes at a time as a match progresses: overcast, windy, hail, light rain, heavy rain (rain with lightning and thunder), and fog.
As well as the added drama from changing weather, I do enjoy how it changes a round. Wind and rain mask sounds, making both close footsteps and distant gunfire trickier to hear. I'm pushed to shift my awareness, and am glad to creep closer to enemies with ease. Fog cloaks players, which obviously reduces down long-range sniping, and I've enjoyed some tense final circles with too many players crammed into too small a space. And the storms are just nice, okay.
I wish the fog were thicker but, as the death of the original fog variant showed, I know that'd change the action too much for too many players. Apparently not everyone enjoys crawling around unable to see someone ten metres away like a deadly game of Sardines.
Today's update also lets us smash through more objects on the new Erangel. New destructible wee barricades have been added around the place, and some old invulnerable objects are now susceptible to your smashing. No more exploding your car by crashing into a traffic cone.
See the update 4.2 patch notes for more on other changes. Those are the test server notes but they carry over to live. The update launched this morning, so get out there and get wet.