Arrowhead Game Studios has announced a new update for Helldivers 2and I’m already a little scared about some new bugs and bots we’ll encounter on the battlefield. Escalation of Freedom will be the biggest patch yet for Helldivers 2and it features a new difficulty level, new biomes, new enemies, and many quality of life changes.
Players can do Difficulty 10 runs, also known as Super Helldives. These missions will feature massive bot fortresses, endless waves of bad guys, and matching rewards. There are also a bunch of new objectives that are added to other difficulty levels, including one where players have to babysit a bug larva in a backpack. It’s kind of like Dead Strandingbut instead of building roads and transporting cargo, you’re fleeing from Bile Titans and Stalkers.
There will also be some new enemies to worry about. The Terminids will be supported by the Impaler, a notorious threat from the very beginning. Hell divers. The Impaler burrows and summons tentacles from beneath the earth, posing a formidable threat that counters the usual run-and-gun strategy players employ against insects. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s a new Charger variant: the Spore Charger, which cloaks itself in mist. The Brood Commander also has a new boss: the Terminid Alpha Commander.
The Automatons are also getting beefed up, with a new Rocket Tank. Arrowhead teased more additions to the robot ranks, but we’ll have to wait to find out more. I’m sure the black hole players recently opened won’t have any nasty surprises; it doesn’t seem like it’s going to backfire spectacularly on us later.
The quality-of-life fixes have one major highlight: an end to grief kicking. Currently, players can kick an unsuspecting ally from the game, meaning they don’t earn any rewards from the match — it’s a particularly nasty form of griefing. Now, if a player is kicked, they’ll spawn in a new session as the host and keep any goodies the team collected in the previous session. There are more changes on the way, including ones to the social menu, but this one is a huge fix for one of the game’s most annoying problems.
Escalation of Freedom will be released on August 6 for both PC and PlayStation 5.