Battlefield 2042’s final update of the year will be released on Thursday

DICE has detailed Battlefield 2042’s final update of 2021, which launches on December 9.

The studio said Thursday’s update will improve bullet hit registration consistency and include balance changes for bullet dispersion and recoil.

It will fix a rare bug which can result in players appearing invisible to enemies, as well as several issues with grenades and launchers.

The update will also reduce the effectiveness of ground vehicle cannons against infantry, make it easier for Xbox players to opt-out of cross-play, and include multiple audio improvements (see the full patch notes below).

“Update #3.1 is our last game update before the start of the holidays,” DICE said. “That means our teams will take a break towards the end of this month and return in the new year with fresh eyes ready to go on the road to Season One.”

Battlefield 2042 Season 1 will include a new Specialist, Battle Pass and Portal content, “and maybe even some new sights to see”, DICE said previously.

It later confirmed it’s working on a new Battlefield 2042 map called Exposure.

Battlefield 2042’s biggest update yet was released last Thursday, introducing over 300 fixes plus balance changes and quality of life enhancements.

Related

EA plans a ‘connected Battlefield universe’ as it restructures its development teams

Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella is now overseeing the series

Following its release, EA announced plans to create a “connected Battlefield universe” alongside widespread changes to the franchise’s development structure.

As part of the shake-up, DICE general manager Oscar Gabrielson is leaving EA altogether, while Respawn and Infinity Ward co-founder Vince Zampella is taking on a new role as the overseer of the entire Battlefield franchise.

Battlefield 2042 update 0.3.1

Fixes, Changes, and Improvements

General

• Players that are not the Party Leader can now cancel while waiting in a queue
• Xbox – Cross-Play can now be enabled/disabled in the Options menu on Xbox
• Your Sort settings will now be correctly remembered when refreshing the Battlefield: Portal Server Browser
• Fixed an issue where loadouts would sometimes be empty on the spawn screen after joining a server, preventing weapon selection
• Made improvements to ensure Aim Assist is more consistent during console gameplay
• Ranger’s effective combat range and overall health has been decreased

Audio

• Made various tweaks to the overall audio experience to improve clarity, distance, and directional perception
• Fixed an issue where soldiers would not always play indoor specific footsteps

Weapons

• Removed bounce from Underbarrel Grenades when firing at short distances
• 40mm AP Grenades now properly damage vehicles
• Fixed some weapons displaying wrong ammo counts for specific magazines
• DXR-1 and NTW-50 Bolt Action rifles reload animation increased by 0.2 seconds
• Adjusted dispersion values for most weapons, which results in a faster dispersion decrease when tap firing or doing short bursts
• Adjusted dispersion increases for most weapons. It now takes slightly longer for weapons to become overly inaccurate in sustained fire
• Adjusted the recoil values to prevent over aggressive recoil jumps for the AK24, LCMG, PKP-BP, SFAR-M GL, and PP-29
• Improved hip fire accuracy for all SMGs to make them better stand-out from other automatic weapon archetypes
• LMG dispersion and recoil lowered to improve performance in sustained fire
• Additional improvements to recoil control for all weapons, more specifically automatic weapons.
• Increased close range damage and consistency of the MCS-880 when using Buckshot Shell or Flechette Shells
• Fixed a bug that caused bullets to be fired below the player’s aims for the SFAR-M GL and the K30

Vehicles

• Fixed a bug where vehicle weapons sometimes did not deal blast damage on a direct hit

• We’re reducing the Ground Vehicle 30mm Cannon effectiveness versus infantry. It now overheats faster, has a slightly reduced rate of fire and blast damage, and increased fall off damage at distance
  • Rate of Fire 350 -> 330
  • Heat Per Bullet 0.13 -> 0.14
  • Heat Drop Per Second 0.5 -> 0.475
  • Blast Damage 20 -> 18
• LCAA Hovercraft – 40mm GPL Grenade Launcher
  • Blast Damage lowered from 55 -> 35
• The 40mm Utility Pod upwards firing angle is now easier to use
• EBAA Wildcat – 57mm Cannon
  • Removed dispersion
  • Ammo 12 -> 8
  • Impact Damage 85 -> 75
  • Blast Damage 70 -> 35

Gadgets

Frag Grenade

• Increased the time to detonate a Frag Grenade from 1.1s -> 1.4s after first bounce on a hard collision
• Increased damage of Frag Grenades across game modes to deal 120 damage and guarantee a kill on armored players too
• Reduced Frag & Incendiary Grenade max ammo account from 2 -> 1

Prox Sensor

• Lowered spotting radius from 30m -> 20m
• Lowered uptime from 30s -> 14s
• Lowered amount of Prox Sensor a player can carry and deploy from 2 -> 1

Battlefield Hazard Zone

• Fixed an issue that caused the roaming Occupying Forces LATV4 Recon to spawn at the wrong times or not at all

Breakthrough

• Kaleidoscope – Rooftop Capture Objective has been removed. There are now two Capture Objective at the bottom in BT large and one at the bottom in BT small
• Orbital – Rooftop Capture Objective has been removed. There is now a single Capture Objective at the bottom in BT large and BT small
• Hourglass – Rooftop Capture Objective has been removed. There is now a single Capture Objective at the bottom in BT large and BT small. Also fixed an issue where players were spawning out of bounds

Soldier

• Improvements on back pedaling into objects when being in prone position
• Fixed a rare issue where players could turn invisible when spawning on a full/destroyed vehicle