PUBG Update 43.2: New Custom Match Host Tools for Scrims and Small Tournaments

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Update 43.2 was published on 13 October 2026, and for anyone who hosts scrims it is a better patch than most. Krafton's notes give Custom Match a full section, and it fixes several things hosts have worked around for years. The patch also touches comms, vehicles and console controls.

This article covers PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS on PC and console. It is not about PUBG Mobile.

When it went live

Per the patch notes, PC maintenance ran on 14 October 2026 from 00:00 to 08:30 UTC, which is 08:00 to 16:30 in Malaysia. Console maintenance was scheduled for 22 October from 01:00 to 09:00 UTC, or 09:00 to 17:00 Malaysian time. Krafton notes that times can change.

Custom Match: the part for organizers

Each of these is a host tool, and some are limited to certain modes, so the mode is in brackets.

Force End Match (Normal Mode, Esports Mode, Intense Battle Royale). The host presses a button in the lower left of the ESC menu. Everyone gets a notice, the match ends after 10 seconds, and all players return to the lobby. No results screen is shown. It helps when a lobby is stuck, a rule was broken and you need to restart, or a final is running past its slot. Because there is no results screen, screenshot the standings first.

Random team assignment (Normal Mode, Intense Battle Royale, Team Deathmatch, Hot Drop). A button in the top right fills teams starting at Team 1, up to their maximum size. Observers and unassigned players are skipped, and in two-team modes the split is as even as it can be. It is unavailable when Solo settings or reserved slots are in use, so a seeded lobby with reserved spots cannot use it.

Hide Player Nicknames (all modes). Other participants appear as "Unknown #000" style names in the killfeed, match log and kill messages. You and your squad still see each other. Real names stay visible in the Death Cam and the Report screen, and they return on the results screen and in replays after the match. Team numbers are still assigned randomly when it is on. It is a useful guard against stream-sniping in public events.

Explosion impulse (Normal Mode). A multiplier from 0 to 10x for all explosives at once or one by one, from frag grenades and C4 to vehicles and gas cans. Fun for a community night, risky for an official event. For ranked-style scrims, leave it at default and say so in the rules.

Intense Battle Royale observer settings. You can set whether dead players become observers, whether killers can be spectated, and whether observers get voice chat. On console only killer spectating is available.

PC lobby chat. Hosts can set it to host only, so only they can message everyone. Team chat, whispers and system messages are unaffected.

Smaller items: the lobby remembers your last selected mode, double-clicking a match in the list joins it, you can kick someone by selecting their name in lobby chat, and team numbers now match between the lobby and the observer screen. Team Selection has observer slots, each holding up to 10 players.

The squad lobby also changed. In Normal and Ranked lobbies the host can drag a teammate's nameplate to change their in-game number, with the host fixed at 1, and matchmaking starts as soon as the host selects Play, whether or not teammates are ready.

Playgrounds creators

The PC-only PUBG: Playgrounds mode and Custom Match Playgrounds get Undo and Redo (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y, up to 50 actions per player) and grouping (select 2 to 100 objects with R, group with G). Team sizes can be set per team, with minimum and maximum each from 0 to 10, which allows modes where teams of different sizes face each other. Winning modes from the PUBG: Playgrounds x CurseForge UGC Contest are added in updates from October to December.

Gameplay changes

Message Radial and markers. There is a new "Get in the vehicle!" message, and the old Thank You message became a movement request, "Move!". World item markers show only within 300 metres, while Care Packages, Deathboxes, Vending Machines and Loot Truck Crates use world markers instead. You can bind keys to open pages 2 and 3 of the World Message Radial directly, with no default keys assigned.

Vehicle spawns. Vehicle types and counts are now identical in Normal and Ranked on Erangel, Miramar, Taego, Vikendi, Deston and Rondo. Motor Gliders: 6 per map, 2 at fixed spots with some fuel and 4 at random across 20 points with none. If you coach for ranked, what your squads learned in Normal now applies.

Vehicle skins. Special Vehicle Skin slots go from 3 to 7, and in-game selection becomes a radial menu, opened by holding H on PC.

Erangel. Terrain destruction textures are darker, so destroyed ground is easier to spot.

Console controls. Two new presets, PUBG Standard and Shooter Standard, join Type A, B, C and Custom. PUBG Standard becomes the default for new players, and neither new preset supports customisation. Existing saved settings are kept.

The Jujutsu Kaisen collaboration buildings were removed from all maps. A PUBG x Bentley collaboration and the SLB mode Dawnbreakers of Rondo are also announced.

Maps in rotation

Krafton's Map Service Report for 43.2 covers rotations. PC rotates every Wednesday at 02:00 UTC (10:00 in Malaysia) and console every Thursday at 07:00 UTC (15:00). For the SEA region, the Normal pool on PC is Erangel, Taego, Sanhok, Rondo and Karakin in week 1 (from 14 October), Erangel, Taego, Miramar, Sanhok and Deston in week 2 (from 21 October), and Erangel, Taego, Rondo, Miramar and Vikendi in week 3 (from 28 October). Console runs a week behind, starting 22 October, so console players are on the week 1 pool today. Ranked uses Erangel, Miramar, Taego and Rondo at 25% each, and changes season by season.

What to change in your event setup

Write a mode and a host-tool policy into your rules, and say who can force-end a match and when. Decide whether public lobbies hide nicknames. Then run one dry lobby, because lobby behaviour changed and a test takes ten minutes.

For current PUBG events, see the PUBG tournaments page.

What the notes do not cover

Nothing in the update notes changes PUBG Esports rules, so official competition rulesets are a separate matter.