Arrowhead Game Studios has announced a new update for Helldivers 2, and I’m already feeling a little bit scared of some of the new bugs and bots we’ll be facing on the battlefield. Escalation of Freedom is going to be the largest patch yet for Helldivers 2, and it includes a new difficulty, new biomes, new enemies, and lots of quality-of-life changes.
Players will be able to go on Difficulty 10 runs, also known as Super Helldives. These missions will have enormous bot fortresses, endless waves of baddies, and rewards to match. There are also a host of new objectives that will be added to other difficulty levels, including ones where players have to babysit a bug larva in a backpack. It’s a little bit like Death Stranding, except instead of building roads and transporting cargo, you’re fleeing from Bile Titans and Stalkers.
There will be some new enemies to worry about as well. The Terminids will be backed up by the Impaler, a notorious threat from the first Helldivers. The Impaler bunkers down and summons tentacles from beneath the earth, which are a massive threat that counters the usual run-and-gun strategy players use against bugs. If that wasn’t bad enough, there’s a new Charger variation: the Spore Charger, who cloaks itself in fog. The Brood Commander also has a new boss: the Terminid Alpha Commander.
The Automatons will be beefed up as well, 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 opened up recently won’t have any unpleasant surprises of its own; that seems like it won’t backfire on us spectacularly later on.
The quality-of-life fixes have one major highlight: an end to grief kicking. Currently, players can boot an unsuspecting ally from the game, meaning they earn no rewards from the match — it’s a particularly mean form of griefing. Now, if a player is kicked, they will spawn into a new session as host, and they’ll keep all the goodies collected by the team in the previous session. There are other changes coming, including to the social menu, but this one is a huge fix for one of the game’s most irritating issues.
Escalation of Freedom is set to release on August 6 on both PC and PlayStation 5.
