Battlefield 2042 developer DICE has released its latest set of patch notes for its highly anticipated Season 6 installment entitled Dark Creations. Aside from the typical batch of bug fixes, the newest update also contains several balance changes to several operators, including two to a couple of underutilized Engineers in Boris and Crawford.

According to the developers’ changes, Boris “will now have further emphasis on ensuring the uptime of his Sentry Turret in order to have optimal damage output out of that turret.” Crawford, on the other hand, “will have a completely new Specialist trait called Deep Pockets, which provides an extra rocket to shoulder-fired launchers.” So, with the Battlefield 2042 Season 6 release date already upon us, you’ll be able to experience these new improvements soon.

Of course, these aren’t the only enhancements DICE has made to the game as part of the latest season, as numerous other changes affecting several different elements have made their way into the game as well. If you want to learn what all of them are, we’ve covered all you need to know below.

Battlefield 2042 Season 6 patch notes

AI, Soldier and General Improvements

  • Added a new option that allows players to auto throw Ammo/Medical Crates upon button press, similar to the auto throw grenades option. This option can be found under Mouse & Keyboard or Controller > On Foot.
  • When a squad mate attempts to deploy onto a person who is in combat, that person will receive a notification informing them a squad mate is attempting to deploy onto them and that they should seek cover to let the squad spawn happen. Both visually and audibly.
  • Fixed the directional arrow on some world icons sometimes showing when the icon is not sticking to an edge.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Nightstick Melee Weapon to fire an invisible projectile that’d create impacts on the world and geometry. Sorry about that, Penguin secret technology almost made it out.
  • Fixed an issue that caused downed players to appear as alive on the big map for a brief moment when playing as a Support Specialist.
  • Fixed an issue that caused no hand signal animation to play when spotting the Centurion C-RAM.
  • Improved the UI animation for when a player spots a target to feel more rewarding and snappy.
  • Improved the enemy health bar experience to be more readable in understanding how much health is remaining from an enemy player as well as how much damage you have recently dealt to that player.
  • Implemented an additional dark outline that helps visualize the total length of the health bar.
  • Changing the lost health bar (right side) so it uses an alpha gradient to improve contrast with the remaining health bar (left side), which will lead to better visibility of remaining health.
  • Added an animated hit event light gradient that sits at the right edge of the remaining health bar.
  • Darkened the remaining health glow (with the goal to visually coincide better with the player name).
  • Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause electrical static audio to play when reviving a player. Less zap zap, more pew pew.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the same command to repeat itself when re-opening the Commorose for a second time.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause AI defenders to get stuck in concrete walls under certain fences.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the distance to enemies further than 50m to not show up.
  • Improved performance on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles while navigating Weapons in the Deploy Screen
  • Fixed an issue where input became throttled while having more than one controller plugged in and using any controller other than controller 1.
  • Fixed an issue that caused VFX particles to be seen through some objects / materials.
  • When performing a revive, attempting to Fire or ADS will now cancel the revive action.
  • Medics inside of vehicles will now be hidden from the nearby reviver list unless they specifically ping the downed player.

Audio

  • Polished the audio experience when dying from explosions.
  • Added audio fixes around foliage assets on Hourglass.
  • Removed tinnitus sound effect from low damage dealing explosions.
  • Resupplying Med Pens from a Medical Crate now has audio.
  • The RPG7-V2 now has audio when performing a lock on to a designated target.
  • Other players can now hear when a jet is doing a close by while boosting.
  • Fixed an additional issue that caused the SU-57 jet to not have any boost audio.
  • Improved the obstruction system to minimize cluttered soundscape involving sounds further away and make close sounds more relevant and valid.
  • Vehicles, explosions and weapon sounds played in an exterior environment, will be more obstructed beyond a certain range if the player is in an interior environment.
  • Additionally, this same category of sounds when played in an interior environment will be more obstructed on far distances and several rooms away.

Battlefield Portal

  • Vehicles now spawn at maximum health when the vehicle maximum health multiplier is set to 2.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the JU-87 Stuka’s (Battlefield 1942) crosshair to disappear when in ADS/Zoom
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Dynamite (Battlefield 1942) to switch to another weapon when trying to detonate all 5 sticks at once.
  • Fixed an issue that caused XP restrictions to not correctly update when changing PvP AI settings in the Portal Web Builder.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Armored Transports (Battlefield 3) to have the incorrect world iconography.
  • Fixed an issue where the Input Restriction blocks were not affecting AI Soldiers.
  • Fixed an issue where the OnPlayerUndeploy and OnPlayerDeployed events would sometimes not trigger for AI Soldiers.
  • Enable controls while rearview camera is active on Battlefield Portal planes

Class Changes

Recon

  • The Recon Class now has a Weapon Proficiency to Secondary Weapons alongside their Sniper Rifle Proficiency. This new Secondary Weapons Proficiency enables them to deploy and undeploy their Secondary Weapon at a faster rate.
  • This combination will function on all weapon combinations as Recon, such as hitting an enemy with a Sniper Rifle to quickly swap to a pistol, or SMG to quickly swap to a pistol.

Maps and Modes

Hourglass: 

  • Fixed an issue where Vehicles would start shaking if placed on top of sand dunes.

Discarded: 

  • Fixed destruction around A1 flag. 
  • Ensured Tornado does not spawn on HQ at the start of the round.

Reclaimed:

  • Fixed an issue on Custom Conquest where B1 and B2 points were not working as intended.

Breakthrough:

  • Deployable gadgets are now destroyed after territory control change on Breakthrough.

Fast Conquest:

  • Fixed an issue with where teams had the incorrect number of tickets.

Tactical CQ:

  • Fixed Missing Voice Over during End of Round.

Gadgets & Specialists

  • Fixed an issue that caused the smoke grenade to allow explosive damage to bleed through walls.
  • If the EOD Bot falls onto a soldiers head, it will now kill them (It’s-a me, Penguinio)
  • Fixed an issue that caused passengers of vehicles firing shoulder-fired launchers to push the vehicle.
  • When attempting to deploy a gadget in the world in an area that it cannot be deployed, it will now present the reason why it is failing to do so, such as Underwater, Not Enough Space, Stolen by Penguins.
  • Improved the scaling of the out of range lock-on states to be more visible at range
  • Improved the readability of blocked lock-on states.
  • Grenades and missiles will now have their minimum damage capped out at 10 to ensure damage reliability.
  • Fixed an issue that caused a broken sprint animation when swapping to the RPG7-V2 during a tactical sprint.
  • Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause defibrillators to be in the characters hands while parachuting.
  • The Ammo Crate is no longer invincible and can now take damage and be destroyed.
  • The Spawn Beacon now requires slightly more room to be deployed that matches more accurately to its object boundaries.

Angel

  • Fixed an issue that caused the parachute to lag behind Angel’s supply drop

Blasco

  • Increased spotting radius of Blasco’s X6 Infiltration Device by 10%.

Boris

  • Increased the range at which Boris’ Technician Trait activates from 1.6m to 3.2m
  • Boris’ Technician Trait will now cause the Sentry Turret to have increased rate of fire by 25%

Casper

  • Fixed an issue that allowed the Recon Drone’s thermal sight to see enemies through smoke.
  • Increased the cooldown for the Recon Drone’s EMP by 5 seconds.

Crawford

  • Crawford’s Trait has been replaced by Deep Pockets, which provides an extra rocket to shoulder-fired launchers. 

Dozer

  • Dozer will now take damage and flinch when taking direct hits towards his shield.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the 40mm Kinetic Grenade Pod to spawn a bullet deflection off of Dozer’s shield.
  • Dozer has also received additional balance improvements regarding his movement:
    • Rotation Speed decreased from 265 degrees per sec to 240.
    • Pitch Speed reduced from 190 degrees per sec to 120.
    • Strafing right/left movement speed reduced from 0.9x to 0.85x.
    • Walking Backwards speed reduced from 0.9x to 0.85x.
    • Sprint velocity reduced from 0.9x to 0.8x.

Falck

  • Fixed an issue that caused the self heal animation on Falck’s Syrette Pistol to sometimes repeat itself.
  • The Penguins have stolen Falck’s Syrette Pistol charges from the Medic Crate, resulting in her no longer being able to resupply Syrette Pistols from the crate. Pesky Penguins, why would they need Syrette Pistol charges?

Irish

  • Fixed an issue that caused the health bar of the Shootdown Sentinel (EIDOS) to not appear when repairing it with the Repair Tool.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Irish”s trait to not resupply the SPH Explosive Launcher.
  • Fixed an issue where an active friendly Shootdown Sentinel (EIDOS) would incorrectly try to intercept an enemy grenade turned friendly after being thrown back by a friendly soldier.
  • Fixed an issue where an active friendly Shootdown Sentinel (EIDOS) would fail to show any VFX & SFX upon intercepting a grenade turned hostile after being thrown back by a soldier.

Lis

  • Fixed an issue where Lis in third-person perspectives wouldn’t aim in the correct direction with her G-84 TGM equipped while in vehicle open-seats.

Mackay

  • Fixed an issue that caused weapon magazines to clip through Mackays forearm in the pre-round screen of a match.
  • Reduced maximum range of Mackay’s grappling hook by 17%.
  • Reduced the speed at which the grapple hook reaches maximum length after being fired by 25%.

Paik

  • Improved the visibility of Paik’s EMG-X Scanner which will now be more opaque so characters are more visible against the environment.
  • We have altered the timings of Paik’s EMG-X Scanner which will result in a longer stay time and a snappier fade out, while still taking the same total time to play her scan.
  • Improved the audio experience when acquiring targets with her EMG-X Scanner to understand how many enemies have been detected.

Rao

  • Added visual and audio feedback to vehicles that have been hacked by Rao’s Cyberwarfare Suite.
  • Rao no longer reveals players around an enemy he has recently hacked and killed, instead Rao will now reveal enemies in the target’s area when he hacks a target. This will reveal all information in that area, such as all enemy soldiers, vehicles and gadgets within 10m of the hacked target for a very brief period of time.
  • Sparks VFX appear when a vehicle is hacked to give improved player feedback.
  • Vehicles will now be able to shoot while they are hacked. Vehicles will instead become “damaged” when hacked. Wheel, turret, engine damage states will trigger.
  • To provide further emphasis on electronic warfare, the EMP Grenade will now behave similar to Rao’s new hacking behaviour.

Explosion Balancing

The following changes are made as our continued efforts to reduce the prevalence of explosions within Battlefield 2042, and ensure that we work towards a more balanced combat field, as intended. We will continue to assess community feedback around this topic.

Frag Grenade 

  • Reduced inner blast radius from 2.25m to 2m.
  • Reduced blast radius from 7m to 6m.

Scatter Grenade (Not Fragmented)

  • Reduced inner blast radius from 2.5m to 2m.
  • Reduced blast radius from 6.5m to 4m.

SPH Launcher

  • Reduced magazine capacity to 1.
  • Reduced maximum amount of shells carried from 4 to 2.
  • Added a movement speed penalty when aiming down sight from 1x to 0.6x.

XM370A

  • Reduced number of magazines from 2 to 1.
  • Increased the recharge timer from 15s to 18s.
  • Adjusted the recharge behaviour to fill missing rounds into the reserve as it only has a singular magazine now, to ensure recharges occur when the weapon is still loaded.
  • The XM370A’s projectile explosion will now light up the surrounding environment.

C5

  • Reduced the range at which the C5 explosion will kill a max health soldier.
  • Adjusted the damage curve to be more readable.

Vehicles

As you may have seen with our recent communications on BattlefieldComms, a large focus for Update 6.0 is to improve the handling and feel of vehicular combat and to move their mobility in line with the pacing of the current state of game.

These changes will ensure that Ground Vehicles remain more grounded, but have the ability to tackle tighter combat scenarios with increased mobility through tank track friction and gravity improvements. We have also taken on board player feedback to address the current power of the EMKV-90 TOR, and taken the opportunity to bring further improvements to Jets.

General

  • Updated Heat Shell name to match its functionality.
  • Fixed an issue where directional exit points would not behave as intended when on slopes.
  • All vehicle open seats will now keep their own aim rotation within their constraints when the vehicle rotates
  • When your vehicle has been designated by either the SOFLAM or Tracer Dart, it will now display information as part of the locking on warning, such as Incoming, Locked, Locking and Designated.
  • Fixed an issue that would let thermal scopes on certain vehicles capable of viewing enemies thermal signature through smoke.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause some vehicle crosshairs to shake after a reload when holding down the fire button.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed players to control a vehicle while their body remained outside the vehicle after a revive.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented characters from equipping a pilots helmet when piloting an air vehicle. Safety first!
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the camera to clip through the ground when entering a vehicle with Dozer’s shield equipped.

MBT

  • Lowered track friction for better maneuverability.
  • Increased turning rates when accelerating to allow for more mobility during combat, additionally we have also increased turning rates without acceleration input.
  • We have made improvements to acceleration and deceleration when in a standstill position, and the ability to turn whilst in this position.
  • Increased power of braking slightly.
  • Longer time to reach max speed in MBTs, players can bypass this by using boost

Bolte & LATV4

  • Lowered max speed when boosting and undergoing normal acceleration.
  • Steering improvements for all speeds, gear ratios have also been updated in connection to these new settings for the Bolte.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the systemic damage icon to not be updated when in the second seat of the M5C Bolte.

EBAA Wildcat

  • Increased power of braking.

Air Vehicles

  • Lowered impulse of 30mm on Attack Heli.
  • Players will now be ejected from aircraft when attempting to enter elevators with them.
  • Fixed an issue that’d cause the Mi-240 Super HIND to continually fly left or right after landing on a surface.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed attack helicopters to fire before the overheat stage had fully finished.

Ground Vehicles

  • All ground vehicles will now have an improved sense of gravity that will result in less float.
  • Suspensions and wheel traction have been tweaked for all ground vehicles to support this extra gravity.
  • Additionally, we have made further alterations to ensure that heavy tanks are less likely to flip from vehicular collisions.

Polaris RZR

  • Fixed an issue that caused the camera to not completely follow the Polaris RZR when it would perform a skid.

Gunships

  • Removed gunships 40mm GL and replaced it with a burst 30mm, please continue to share your thoughts on this as we assess Gunship balancing.

EMKV90 TOR

  • Minimum damage lowered on both primary weapons and default weapons from 400 to 200 and HHV-EMG Maul from 635 to 400
  • The HHV-EMG Maul weapon will no longer no longer one shot light air vehicles (Jets, Nightbird, Stealth Heli) beyond 330m, additionally it will also no longer one shot Attack Helicopters beyond 280m.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the EMKV90 TOR to warp when going up a vehicle elevator as it transitions into siege mode.
  • Added velocity scaled by pitch for EMKV90 TOR. This starts at 6 degrees and reaches its maximum impact by 12 degrees, weapons will fire roughly half their original speed at 12 degrees.

Jets

  • Included a Jet Afterburner Meter so players are now able to manage how and when to use afterburners to gain air combat advantage.
  • Improvements made to first perspective crosshairs.

Weapons

  • Fixed an issue with the VCARs camera shake being out of proportion
  • Fixed an issue where Extended Barrel did not affect rate of fire on VCAR
  • Fixed an issue where you could Hold Breath with the SVD, as this weapon is classed as an DMR this is no longer possible.
  • Fixed an issue where minimap stealth bonuses from suppressors and subsonic ammo was not consistent with descriptions and in game behavior
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Assault Weapon Proficiency to grant extra underbarrel ammo on the AEK971.
  • Fixed inconsistencies between suppressor firing sounds when choosing different magazine types for the AEK971.
  • Adjusted animation undeploy speed of the MP412 REX and M44 Revolver to be more in line with actual timings of undeploying.
  • Increased the blast radius of the explosion bolt of the Ghostmaker R10 from 2m to 3m.
  • Fixed an issue where semi auto dispersion was not calculated correctly on some weapons, causing them to be less accurate
  • Fixed an issue that caused the 12M Auto to have higher rate of fire in single fire while equipped with the Shortened Barrel
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the scope glint to sometimes be disabled due to the interaction with some underbarrel attachments
  • Fixed an issue where the RPK-74M Laser Sight was misaligned with the weapon.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the SVD’s ejected bullet casings to be misplaced when equipped with any barrel attachment.
  • Updated the K8 reticle icon in the menus to match the reticule that is present in game.
  • Updated the NVK-FSN’s reticle icon in the menus to match the reticule that is present ingame.
  • Fixed an issue that caused certain specialists sleeves to clip through the NVK-P125’s when reloading.
  • Fixed an issue where some vault weapons did not have the right spread bonuses for different fire modes
  • Fixed an issue that caused the K30’s subsonic magazine to not have a mesh when selected.
  • Polished the animation when reloading the AM40 when it has underbarrel attachments equipped.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented several Vault Weapons from being able to revert to their factory (default) skin
  • Fixed an issue that caused the GAR45 Suppressor and Warhawk compensator to have a muzzle flash when equipped on the MP443
  • Fixed an issue that caused an increase in dispersion (bloom) when proning with the M1911
  • Fixed an issue that caused recoil on hipfire to reset very slowly on the PP-2000
  • Polished the general alignment of laser underbarrel attachments across weapons.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the BPF.50’s reload animation to snap when ADSing after having swapped magazine type.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the NVK-P125’s weapon slide to remain open after swapping magazine type.
  • Removed headshot multiplier from the 12M Auto and MCS-880 to be in line with other shotguns.
  • Fixed an issue that caused weapon magazines to clip through Mackays forearm in the pre-round screen of a match.
  • Fixed an issue where the Aim Assist (crosshair slow down over targets) and Aim Assist Zoom Snap Modifiers in Battlefield Portal weren’t working as intended in some cases
  • Fixed an issue where Aim Assist would be active on targets occluded by vehicle smoke
  • P90 dispersion has been increased.
  • PP29 dispersion while moving has been fixed, it was using incorrect (lower) values.

LMG Balance Update

LCMG

  • Slower dispersion increase

PKP

  • Slower dispersion increase
  • Vertical recoil multiplier decreased by 20% for the first 2 shots to improve bursting capability
  • Vertical recoil increased by 5%

Avancys

  • Slower dispersion increase

XM8L

  • Slower dispersion increase

M240B

  • Slower dispersion increase
  • Vertical recoil reduced by 5%
  • Initial shot recoil multipliers redone from scratch to improve sustained fire stability

Type 88

  • Slower dispersion increase

RPT-31

  • Vertical recoil increased by 8%
  • Slower dispersion increase 
  • Dispersion behavior is now more differentiated between high and low rate of fire builds i.e. dispersion will vary more depending on which attachments are used, where a higher rate of fire will result in lower accuracy and the other way around.

RPK

  • Slower dispersion increase

M60

  • Slower dispersion increase
  • Reduced maximum dispersion

All LMGs

  • Reduced initial dispersion penalty when moving while standing, crouching and prone
  • Slightly increased the time it takes for recoil to fully reset overall, where on average it will now take a bit longer than for ARs. The intention is that while LMGs will now be more accurate and reliable over longer distances, their close-quarters agility will be slightly lower.
  • This is further split into two groups with a very minor difference between the two: Fast – Avancys, RPK and XM8 and Standard – All others.

DMR Balance Update

M39, SVK and SVD

  • Slightly increased dispersion when firing at maximum fire rate. 

VCAR

  • Slightly decreased dispersion when firing at maximum fire rate.

BSV-M

  • Horizontal and initial vertical recoil have been increased.

That covers all you need to know about the Battlefield 2042 Season 6 patch notes. For more, take a look at our pages on the Battlefield 2042 Season 6 end date and the Battlefield 2042 Game Pass compatibility.