Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds’ next patch tweaks loot spawns, adds guns

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is getting a significant patch in the next few days, which includes two new weapons as well as a big tweak to loot spawns.

This month developer Bluehole is adding the Groza. It’s a 7.62 mm bullpup that promises excellent stability and stopping power at short and medium ranges. It will only be available in care packages, which are dropped into the game via parachute. The Groza will replace the VSS, a suppressed 9 mm sniper rifle that was added just last month. The VSS will now only spawn as random loot in the game world.

Also being added to random spawns is the P18C, a 9 mm pistol with a fully automatic mode. It remains to be seen if it’s actually an effective primary weapon or if it’s just a novelty sidearm.

Big changes are also on the way to the spawn rate generally, both for weapons and armor. The SCAR-L, a 5.56 mm assault rifle with exceptional stability and a long range, will appear less frequently as will the 9 mm UMP submachine gun. The spawn rate of the Uzi is being raised to compensate. Lower end helmets will also see their spawn rate reduced, while the occurrence of low end body armor is being boosted.

June’s update will be the fourth monthly patch since Battlegrounds launched. The team at Bluehole has vowed to remain in Steam’s Early Access program for only six months total, which means they have two more months to go before the game’s full commercial release. Not that early access is slowing them down at all. Last week the team announced it had sold more than 4 million copies, which converts into roughly $120 million in revenue.

You can read more about the history and the future of Battlegrounds in our interview with the creator, Brendan “Playerunknown” Greene, from this year’s E3 in Los Angeles.