The latest patch for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, update 5.3, is now live on the game's test server on PC. It's the final patch for 2019, and although it's not adding any new maps or weapons, it's still an interesting one. The full patch notes outline every little change introduced, but the three most important additions are the new blood effect improvements, the removal of locked crates, and the new addition of cloud saves for your settings.

The blood effect changes mean that locations will now tell you more of a story about the fights that have erupted across them. Shots to the head or neck now have a more distinct visual effect, and blood impact effects on characters now better show off where they've been hit, but the most important change is that blood splatter will now show up on walls and floors. If a major battle happened in a building, you might walk in and find it coated in blood after this update.

Cloud saves for settings mean that you'll easily be able to load up your settings if you switch to a different PC. Settings dependent on hardware can't be saved, nor language settings, but you can bring most of your preferred settings over to another computer easily now.

Meanwhile, loot crates bought with BP will no longer have the possibility of being locked. This follows on from the developer's promise to improve crate content, and random crate contents and percentages have been tweaked a bit. You have a 16% chance of getting a Wanderer, Survivor, Biker, Militia, or Raider Crate, a 17% chance of getting a Fall 2018 Crate, and just a 3% chance of a Venetian Crate.

PUBG is currently in season 5, and recently changed how its circle system works to deter camping. The rest of the 5.3 patch notes are below. It should be live on PC soon, and then for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One after that.

GAMEPLAY

Blood Effect Improvements

• Headshots including the neck area produce more distinct visual effect to ensure clear identification of hit
• Blood splatter will be shown on walls and floors if the character is hit near it
  • The size of the blood splash is unified across all color settings
• Blood impacts on characters will now provide a more precise visual representation of which body parts have been hit

Vending Machine

• Reduced the maximum number of uses per Vending Machine from 15 to 10

SETTINGS

Cloud Saving

• Settings now can be saved to the cloud in the settings screen
• Saved settings can be loaded in the settings screen when needed
  • This also allows players to load their account settings even when playing on a new PC
• Settings that are dependent on hardware cannot be saved
  • GRAPHICS: All settings in the GRAPHICS category except “Language Setting”
  • GAMEPLAY: “Inventory Character Render” setting cannot be saved
• The Cloud Saving option can be found at the bottom right of the SETTINGS screen
• Test Server settings will only be saved on to the test server account

WEAPON MASTERY

Favorite Weapon

• Players can now choose their “favorite weapon” in the Mastery tab
• The weapon of choice will show up as the first weapon stat in your PUBG ID, regardless of whether the weapon has the highest level or not
• A grey star will show up when player’s mouse is hovered over it. Clicking the star will favorite the weapon
• A gold star will show up next to a chosen weapon when a player favorites it
• Players can only favorite individual weapons and not categories
• There can only be one favorite. That’s just logical
• The favorite weapon will always show up at the top of players’ list, even when the sorting feature is used

UI/UX

Lobby Theme

• Lobby background will change to a HAPPY HOLIDAYS theme once the patch is updated on live servers
• To set the winter mood, the lobby music has also been changed

Weapon HUD Improvement

• Heal and acceleration icons on the weapon HUD will now flash when activated

CUSTOM MATCH

Esports Mode

• Boats and Aquarails now have fixed spawn locations and numbers on Sanhok

Observing UI Improvement

• Enabled rear camera flip (180 degrees flip) by pressing Ctrl+R key during freecam perspective
• Enabled adjusting camera movement speed during observing
  • Speed up: =
  • Speed down: –
• Bullet tracer setting indicator will now be shown on the bottom left of the UI

REPLAY

• Old replays cannot be played due to a version update to the replay system.

WORLD

• All PGC signs and banners on Miramar have been removed

SURVIVOR PASS: BADLANDS

• The current season of both the Survivor Pass and Survival Title System will end on January 14 PDT
  • Starting January 1st, there will be a countdown on the Survivor Pass lobby banner notifying players of the pass end date
  • A pop-up message will be displayed to users purchasing Premium Pass and Level-up items, alerting them of the time left until pass end
• Premium Pass and Level-up items can be purchased until the Pass period ends

SKINS & ITEMS

The following items will be added to the Store after Update 5.3 hits live servers:

• Added 2 BattleStat weapon skins (QBU and P1911)
• Added 2 BattleStat weapon skins (SKS and P92)
  • Purchasable with BP
• Added 3 Factory Worker skins
• Added 4 Punk Destruction skins

Crates

• Crates requiring keys to unlock are no-longer included in the pool of Random Crates purchasable with BP
  • For more information, please go to the following link: Dev Letter: Improving Crate Content
• Random Crate contents and percentages have been adjusted as shown below:

Wanderer, Survivor, Biker, Militia, or Raider Crate: 16%

Fall 2018 Crate: 17%

Venetian Crate: 3%

BUG FIXES

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where the reticle would shake when ADS with a 6x Scope equipped
• Fixed an issue where character movement would stutter when firing the DBS in certain situations
• Fixed an issue where BRDM collision damage was higher than intended
• Fixed an issue where a disconnected player could float when displaced by a prone character

World

• Mitigated an issue which causes players to be bumped into the air when moving close to certain objects

Custom Match

• Fixed an issue while observing and using the x-ray feature where the character outline is not visible after a player is revived
• Fixed an issue where healing items would not show while spectating in free cam when in observer mode

UI/UX

• Fixed an issue where only the ammo of one weapon is updated in the inventory when holding more than one weapon using the same ammo type
• Fixed an issue where the character size would show incorrectly in lobby when moving to lobby after seeing preview of PGC 2019 bundle
• Fixed an issue where character rendering is done late when changing gender while creating a character
• Fixed an issue where item equipped icon and new item notification icon would appear at the same location in CUSTOMIZE menu