HeatWave 2026

The temperatures are rising once again as the Heatwave Event returns to San Paro from June 18, 2026 until July 8, 2026.

Throughout the event, players can earn exclusive titles through weekly logins, progress through the Heatwave Role by completing missions and minigames, and enjoy a storewide ARMAS Marketplace discount.

Event Dates June 18 - July 8, 2026

Main Rewards Titles, Joker Tickets, weapon skins

ARMAS Sale 20% off during the event

Login Rewards

Log in at any point during the event to receive:

• Rainbow Title

• #LoveWins Title

Weekly login rewards will also be available throughout Heatwave:

Week 1 - Hotshot Title

Week 2 - Climate Casualty Title

Week 3 - Sun Touched Title

Heatwave Role Rewards

Complete missions and minigames to advance through the Heatwave Role. Each rank requires 10 total missions or minigames completed.

Each day of the Heatwave event is going to come with a daily event! On week days players can expect a rotation of the following events:

• 1.5x increased APB$ from Missions and Ram raiding.

• 2x increased Joker Tickets from Missions.

• 2x Weapon Role progression.

During the weekends, players can expect the following event:

• 1.5x increased Contact Standing from Missions.

ARMAS Marketplace Sale

For the duration of the event, all items in the ARMAS Marketplace will be discounted by 20%.

Log in, earn your rewards, and try not to melt out there.

Pistol Changes Walkthrough

This patch ships a large number of experimental pistol changes following a new design approach, these were tested and iterated on with the help of our testing team over the last month and we're now at the point where we feel confident in trying these out on the Live servers to gather more feedback and see how this new approach affects the meta in the ways we're hoping it will. Before we head into the details we wanted to take the time to go over what prompted this design approach.

The Colby .45 has been at the top of the Secondary Meta for an extremely long time for good reason, it is supposed to be one of the best if not the best secondary in the game within short to medium ranges should the user have the required skill to consistently utilize its strengths despite its glaring weaknesses of high recoil, low magazine capacity and poor accuracy when firing as soon as you come out of sprint. We have seen the constant feedback about the Colby .45 feeling overpowered when playing against players who mastered the weapon but because of the effort and consistency required to make the Colby .45 be this strong our design approach was to bring other pistols up to par and able to beat the Colby .45 but not as versatile to ensure that players who mastered the Colby .45 are still rewarded for their mastery of the gun. This also directly influenced the design of the Joker M9 which was supposed to be a a direct counter to the Colby .45 in close range scenarios, giving players yet another alternative to combat the Colby .45.

The Joker M9 was a final attempt to balance around the Colby .45 AP to see if there is going to be a decrease in negative feedback about the Colby .45's power and following the release of Legends and the Joker M9 becoming available to all players via regular contact progression it quickly became apparent that this design approach is not working as it created a scenario in which there was negative feedback about both the Colby .45 AP as well as the Joker M9 with users from both ends being unhappy about the state of the other weapon.

Following this increase in negative feedback and many community suggestions including extensive discussions in our testing community we started working on an experimental balance pass that addresses the issue of Secondary weapons being too powerful and often working well enough within closer ranges to consistently beat out primary weapons that are designed to perform best in close range.

All of the changes below are experimental, we will be monitoring the situation closely and make changes based on further feedback or even fully revert changes and go back to the drawing board should this approach not work out either. We also understand that many of these will throw off years of muscle memory but our hope is that these changes will diversify the Secondary meta whilst also allowing Close range weapons more freedom to exist.

Join the discussion:

https://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/33440-0618-heatwave-patch-announcement/