Last month, Helldivers 2 studio Arrowhead committed to a 60-day action plan to address community concerns about the game. Now, the developer has outlined what players can expect from the next couple of months.
In a blog post, Arrowhead said that the team “has been hard at work refining the gameplay experience.” Weapon balancing and enemy behaviour systems are in the devs’ crosshairs, and the team says it’s “fully committed to ensuring Helldivers 2 meets the high standards we all expect,” noting the game’s slump into ‘Mostly Negative’ Steam reviews and saying that “we hear you loud and clear.”
The game’s next update, due on September 17, will include “significant changes” that will touch on Armor Penetration thanks to “an initial balancing pass on over 30 weapons and stratagems,” as well as reworks of Anti-Tank weapons and enemy armor and health values.
There’ll also be an overhaul of various enemies, especially bots, “to make them feel more rewarding to kill when you use the proper tools to handle them.” Bots are getting a pretty tough nerf, with lower armor and fewer rockets fired, but Bugs are also in the firing line, with armor values of the like of the Chargers, Impalers, and Bile Titans all dropping.
As enemies get weaker, certain weapons are getting stronger. The Autocannon, Heavy Machine Gun, and Anti-Material rifle are all getting buffed to provide “great loadout versatility,” and flamethrower weapons are also in line for “additional improvements.” That’s all in line with the aim to “consider new player fantasies.”
Arrowhead says that the team is looking at a variety of forms of feedback to shape these changes, and has been conducting closed beta tests recently. There are hopes that the studio will be able to gradually roll these out to wider groups within the community – linked to a previously-mentioned Helldivers 2 experimental server – but it will “take some time” to do so.
The 60-day action plan means that Arrowhead is slowing down its update cadence, which in turn meant that there was no update to the game this week. The studio is working “tirelessly” to nail down the update, but that does mean that the traditional update schedule is taking something of a hit.