Helldivers 2 got the big update players have been waiting for on Tuesday, addressing a litany of issues with balance and difficulty. And for the first time in a while, fans seem to be reacting positively to the game.
Patch 1.001.100 is a big aspect of Arrowhead Game Studios’ 60-day plan to address feedback and build back some goodwill after a series of updates made the game too difficult for many players. It’s a huge update, so we won’t get into all the fixes, but the highlights include overhauls to 31 weapons, 11 stratagems, 15 enemies, the Helldivers themselves, and planet modifiers like heat and cold. There’s also a new Galactic War map that displays the locations of important assets, and an emote wheel that allows players to equip four emotes at a time.
The consensus among the most vocal of the fanbase was that some tweaks to weapons and stratagems over the months since launch made the game less engaging, and made the game more difficult for difficulty’s sake. Players also suggested that the developers weren’t listening to what the players wanted and were instead making arbitrary balance changes. August’s Escalation of Freedom update was particularly unpopular, nerfing incendiary weapons like flamethrowers to make them less effective against Terminids and other armored enemies.
Over the past week, Arrowhead released news on one big change per day in its Discord and X, with the first being increased damage for flamethrowers, and a rollback to pre-Escalation of Freedom changes for incendiary weapons. The railgun, easily the weapon that has been messed up the most from a player standpoint, has also gotten a massive damage boost, while the breaker can now hold more ammo, the arc thrower has an increased range and can deal more damage, and the eruptor has gotten its shrapnel back. Finally, the Eagle 500kg bomb stratagem has a larger explosion radius.
“So, what’s changing? For all the bugdivers out there, many situations were previously either resolved with your primary weapon or anti-tank weapons, which haven’t always performed as expected. With the overwhelming presence of Bile Titans and Chargers, many weapon choices therefore became invalid,” the patch notes read. “We’ve reworked armor penetration, anti-tank weapons, enemy armor and health values. Our goal is to improve the effectiveness of weapons such as the Autocannon, Heavy Machine Gun, Flamethrower, and Anti-Materiel Rifle against heavily armored enemies.”
So far, this patch has gone over well with the player base. SteamDB puts the 24-hour concurrent player peak at 68,380, which is the highest number the game has registered in over three months. (Although this could be because people are checking out the updates, not that they’ve been convinced to return.) The subreddit also appears to be reacting positively, with some joking that there are almost too many good gameplay strategies to try.
But has the update made the game too easy? Chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt has been interacting with users on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, and agrees that the game does need a harder difficulty tier.
I agree!
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) September 17, 2024
Pilestedt noted that the team is looking into “the challenge of the game for those high tier players,” along with the jump pack.
