Update 32.1 has gone live on PC with consoles getting the update next week (Oct 17th 8pm AEDT).

The update introduces the usual new season, new event, new survivor pass, new map rotations, buffs and nerfs, but also the region merge.

This article is going to focus on a few key changes for general players and the Oceanic region changes, for the full run down I recommend reading the official patch notes.

On PC, the Oceania region is going to be merged with the Southeast Asian region to become SEA. On console, Oceania is being merged into Asia to become APAC.

These changes do appear to have some noticeable impact on ping, my quick tests took me from 20ms to 80ms ping time. The trade-off however, is the player counts vs the bot counts.

Comparing two solo matches two nights apart, before the update, on October 8th at 11pm, I had a game with 27 real players, which felt as good as it gets. After the update, on October 10th at 10pm, I had a game with 97 real players.

This player increase, even at the cost of ping time, made the matches feel a lot closer to the intensity of how PubG used to feel. There was a lot more at stake, every fight tough, I found myself using stealth more, being distracted by out of game things less. I haven’t got a conclusive opinion yet on how the ping changes feel but so far, the trade-off is worth trying, and I’m keen to play more. The game feels more intense, both games I got 7th place, but significantly less kills with a lobby full of trigger ready real players, yet the lower kill game is way more memorable.

The other benefit of the Region Merge for PC players in our region is the ability to now select which map you wish to play on, which feels like an absolute privilege.

For team games, the Blue Chip system will now be active from the start, and there will be more return flights with them occurring every 2.5 minutes until phase seven. The number of remaining flights will be visible in the map UI and also near the mini map if you’re carrying a mates chip. The return flights will now be guided by the circle, not the blue ring. Lastly, teammate Blue Chip locations will be marked on the map.

The Ping and communications systems have had some improvements too, including the introduction of emoji for quicker communication via the radio message wheel. Key among the changes is that Pings will now appear in the compass as shown in below screenshot.

There is a whole bunch of smaller changes plus detailed weapon changes available on the official patch notes. And further changes related to the Region Changes can be found here.

Generally speaking, if you haven’t had a game of PubG in a while, now is a great time, player counts are high, player counts per game are very high, performance is the best it’s ever been, and the Dev team have been working hard to add Quality of Life features such as the recall system to bring it in line with many of its competitors.