Battlefield 6 is about to receive a new update. Version 1.1.3.0 is set to arrive tomorrow, December 9 to kick off the third and final phase of the game’s first season. Winter Offensive brings some holiday-themed new content to the game, but it’s not the most interesting part of the patch.
That honour goes to a couple of the high-level changes Battlefield Studios has included with the new patch, which range from a major pass on audio to a fix for a particularly annoying bug that’s been seemingly introduced with a recent patch.
Thew new content takes the form of a limited-time version of the game’s Empire State map, which covers it in snow and tweaks its layout slightly. To go along with that there are new limited-time modes for both multiplayer and Redsec’s Gauntlet. The event mode will be available in Conquest, and Domination.
The Ice Climbing Axe is the only new weapon in this drop. The battle pass gets a new Winter Offensive bonus path, just like we’ve seen with previous seasonal stages. This is how you unlock the axe, too.
Easily the most interesting change in this update is the range of improvements to audio across the board. First, footstep audio received a big pass that should make it easier to hear enemy footsteps, easier to locate them, and across different surfaces.
Some of the bugs that caused certain sounds to simply vanish have been fixed. This was especially prevalent in battle royale matches. BF Studios explained in the patch notes that it has adjusted memory priorities for in-game sounds in order to prioritise the most crucial ones. This is not the end of the road on audio, however, as the developer continues to work on making the soundscape more stable and reliable.
Some of those audio changes are the result of recent testing done in Battlefield Labs, which is also responsible for another exciting addition in this latest patch: improvements to hit registration.
While BF6 has had solid and stable netcode, certain situations would sometimes create uncertainty about how you died, and why certain actions seemingly failed to perform at that particular moment.
The focus in this update is to improve the reliability of how actions in close-quarter combat are translated, which includes firing before fully going into ADS, quick aim changes and more.
Speaking of close-range, the patch also brings another pass to soldier visibility to make it easier for enemies to stand out from the background. This is particularly relevant in areas with low contrast, or busy environments with lots of particle and visual effects.
1.1.3.0 also brings yet another set of weapon handling and gunplay tweaks, this time focusing on accuracy issues with first shots. You can also expect more tweaks to attachment behaviour with regards to recoil.
Something else worth highlighting is that vehicle gameplay is getting several smaller tweaks that have to do with how they interact with the world, how their HUDs behave and more. Finally, your settings should no longer be reset after applying an update. BF Studios says there are still some instances where that might happen, but the issue should be fixed for the majority of players.
You can read the full change log on the Battlefield blog.