Playerunknown's Battlegrounds will let you throw pans at people
Put a donk on it!
Ever since I saw the throwing pans of Mordhau, putting a banging donk on people with a pan in Playerunknown's Battlegrounds just hasn't been the same. So I am delighted to see that the next major update will let us hoy melee weapons at our foes, or use our strong throwing arm to toss a cold fresh can of juice to our pals. Plunkbat Season 5: The One With The Throwing. The update, launched onto the test servers today, will also bring an overhaul of the Miramar map following Erangel's great refresh earlier this year.
PUBG Corp would have you believe the headline feature is the Miramar overhaul. And sure, that's welcome - it's far from my favourite map. Miramar's makeover removes lots of the trash and clutter that get in your way while adding some neat novelties. A race track has opened, for one. Locals perhaps excited by this have put ramps, jumps, and loops around. Vending machines dispensing energy drinks and painkillers have been installed in appropriate places as well.
There's also a neat new prestige objective: one, and only one, golden Mirado muscle car spawns at Hacienda del Patron. It's just a Mirado. But also it's gold. And there's only one. In an already-spicy zone. How much will you risk to get the shiny car?
Item drop rates are being further tweaked to better suit the long-range fights Miramar encourages, with a 42% boost to snipers, 29% to DMRs, 30% to Winchesters, 12% to ARs, and 18% on scopes - and a big reduction of 31% for pistol spawns. That there Winchester will come with a 2.7x welded on now too, and is only found on Miramar. New spike strips to toss across roads sound potentially handy too, given that driving off-roading is a nightmare on Miramar.
Yeah yeah, but the pans? Melee weapons are becoming throwable (and stack in inventory), which isn't hugely powerful but does sound great fun. A thrown weapon will kill with a headshot at a distance of up to 15 metres, and who could resist trying?
Nice one, laaads. My favourite part of this player's panmurder victory is you can clearly see a teamie is also hurling pans at that poor fool.
Throwing isn't purely hostile. Players can request healing items or ammo through the radio menu, and teamies within 15 metres can throw from their stash by looking at 'em and pressing F. Given the nightmare of swapping items around a squad, that sounds useful even out of combat.
And... this all sounds nice? Not hugely game-changing, and maybe not as much as the game needs, but nice. While I'll not try Update 5.1 on the test server because they're just not set up for fun play, I look forward to the upcoming start of Season 5. See the patch notes for more on what hit the test servers today.