Today, Arrowhead Games released a brand new transmission for fans of its hit multiplayer shooter, Helldivers 2.
Straight from the mouth of Game Director Mikael Eriksson, the post was all about the ongoing progression of Helldivers 2. Specifically, it detailed how an upcoming overhaul is being implemented to is endgame rewards, add player choice, and expand the Galactic War economy.
He starts by addressing long-standing player feedback and acknowledging that raising the level cap alone is not enough to sustain the game’s long-term replayability. To start, Personal Orders are becoming a system tied to active campaigns.
Each Galactic War Campaign will now feature a unique, dedicated personal progression reward track to better align player motivations with the community’s war goals. The ship module system is also being restructured to add greater agency and build variety via further personalization.
Speaking of ship variety, Arrowhead has even formed a dedicated internal ship team working on entirely new ships in Helldivers 2. Each new vessel will have its own specialization, progression track, and customization options.
The player level cap will expand significantly, increasing from 150 to 300. The developers noted that they want more valuable upgrades for all players, not just for those who have unlocked 100% of the offerings.
Helldivers 2 even plans to add dynamic warfronts on planets, where players need to make strategic community decisions on a planet level in order to liberate it, which were also teased as one of the next big things being worked on, and will be grouped under a few different categories
- “Defend” missions in liberated territory
- “Frontline War” missions on the frontlines
- “Behind Enemy Lines” missions in enemy-controlled territory
Players will fight to reach key strategic locations on planets, such as cities, which can host various active enemy variants. Liberating planets has gameplay-altering effects and consequences, such as reaching and liberating a city within X time or disabling enemy artillery at a single location to unlock crucial Operations, with the overall goal of enabling you to liberate planets with your squad and deepening the Galactic War and Community Progression systems.
New economy and resource improvements will also be added, offering veterans new ways to use stockpiled assets such as samples. Quality-of-life changes include an assisted reload buff, eight emote slots (upgraded from four), improved responsiveness, and streamlined menu upgrades.
Efforts to improve physics and traversability are underway to help fix instances of stratagem bouncing and hellpod steering locking. Ground traversal is also being smoothed out by reducing movement penalties on grass and vegetation, as well as erratic environmental collisions.
Arrowhead also announced that a structured closed beta test system is being implemented to test these features, using community “Propaganda Commanders” to gather feedback on balancing and stability issues. Other improvements teased to be coming down the line include:
- Stratagem bouncing. We’ve assembled a task force to prototype fixes for this issue, and we’re hoping to have it solved by the end of the year.
- Hellpod steering. Similar to stratagem bouncing, we’re also tackling this long-standing issue.
- Improving enemy and player traversal, which includes environmental collision, and reducing movement penalties on grass and vegetation.
- Increasing the level cap to 300.
- Economy and resource improvements.
- Fixes to the Warbond and Superstore menus that make them easier to navigate.
- Closed beta testing that focuses on stability and balancing, and that includes getting beta test feedback from our Propaganda Commanders.
Helldivers is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC for $39.99. For more information on this and the slew of other Warbond and quality of life updates that have been released for the console and PC versions of Helldivers 2, be sure to check back to Simulation Daily.
