'PUBG' season 5 will have throwable items and weapons

An airborne frying pan will be deadlier than a tossed machete or crowbar.

Season 5 of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is about to get underway, and PUBG Corp has offered some details on what's in store. One of the bigger additions is spike traps, which you can place in the path of an enemy car to pop the tires.

You'll be able to throw items to your teammates as well. That should come in handy when you're in the midst of a firefight and you're running low on ammo or health. You can request a particular item using the communication system, and your teammate can send it your way with a single press of the interact key.

Also, you'll have the option of chucking melee weapons at enemies. What's truly most exciting about that is the prospect of picking up a kill via a thrown frying pan. It has a shorter maximum range than other throwable weapons, but it can actually cause more damage than the machete, crowbar or sickle. Ouch.

Also new with the season 5 update are vending machines, which is a case of PUBG taking a leaf out of the Fortnite playbook. They'll dispense painkillers and energy drinks, and will be available in Miramar and Camp Jackal.

PUBG Corp is planning a refresh for the Miramar map this time around, after it gave Erangel an overhaul in season 4. Miramar will feature a race track with loops, ramps and jumps, along with a new car, the Gold Mirado. There'll be less clutter in and around buildings, while spawn rates for long-range weapons and scopes will be increased, as will those for helmets, bags and vests. Meanwhile, along with a higher spawn rate, the Win94 will have a built-in 2.7x scope though the weapon will be exclusive to Miramar. You'll likely see fewer pistols on the map in the future, as PUBG Corp has cut the drop rate of those guns by 31 percent.

There's a new survivor pass, of course, along with community missions everyone can take part in. Curiously, this involves collecting DVDs and broken discs from cardboard boxes to unlock skin rewards along with more details about the game's lore. You'll have access to challenge, progression and season missions too.

You can expect some UI tweaks in the wardrobe, store and in-game, along with sound and performance updates. PUBG Corp will add more options to Zombie Mode, along with ground respawns for war mode (instead of dropping from the plane), bug fixes and replay system tweaks.

You can try out what PUBG season 5 has in store now on the PC test server. The 5.1 update will hit the live PC servers October 23rd and consoles October 29th.