To say that Arrowhead Game Studios' PvE co-op shooter Helldivers 2 has been going through some tough times would be an understatement. While the popular 2024 title got a nice boost from coming to Xbox and has gotten a fairly steady stream of new content this year, the additions have been marred by a lack of meaningful endgame progression, underwhelming community-driven Galactic War events, and frustrating, persistent gameplay issues and bugs.
Players have grown increasingly annoyed and disappointed by these problems, to the point where Helldivers 2 nosedived to "Mostly Negative" last month (it's now resting at "Mixed"). Everyone's been curious to see how Arrowhead will address their grievances and attempt to right the ship — and now, thanks to a detailed blog post from game director Mikael Eriksson, we have a clear view of what's next for Helldivers 2.
Eriksson has revealed a multifaceted plan from Arrowhead to try and swing community sentiment from "it's so over" to "we're so back," with the studio planning on enriching its progression structure while also targeting the addition of deeper gameplay systems as well as the implementation of crucial fixes for some of Helldivers 2's most irksome bugs.
First up are Galactic War Campaigns, "the next evolution of Major Orders" that are coming in June. These will be "roughly 1-3 weeks in length" and are being designed "with the intention that it will always be clear what the active Campaign is, how it's going, what the outcomes have been, and what's at stake."
Arrowhead's ultimate goal with Galactic War Campaigns is to bring more story into the larger overarching objectives the community is tasked with completing, and to make their narrative context and the player base's progress completing them easier to reference and understand.
Successful Galactic War Campaigns will be accompanied by special rewards beyond Warbond Medals, which is something I've wanted to see for ages. These will range from "gameplay altering effects to cool items," with Arrowhead planning to release a new type of Fast Recon Vehicle (FRV) after the first Campaign's completion. One with a grenade launcher instead of a heavy machine gun, perhaps?
They'll also come with "Personal Campaign Progression" objectives, which are replacing Personal Orders and will feature their own reward track independent of the overarching goal of Galactic War Campaigns. In this way, even if players fail the wider Campaign, their individual contributions will be rewarded.
At a later time, the developers will also introduce Planet Warfronts, which will give players dynamic strategic paths to take as a community as they fight to liberate or defend a planet. Completing "Defend," "Frontline War," and "Behind Enemy Lines" operations will contribute towards different objectives, which in turn will yield unique consequences depending on if players fail or are successful.
"We want liberating planets to feel unique and epic for everyone," Eriksson explained.
Next, we learned that ship modules are getting tweaked so that players have more choice in picking strong buffs that suit their playstyle and won't just have a flat path of upgrades to progress through, and that entirely new ships with their own strengths, weaknesses, and modules will come as alternatives to your Super Destroyer as well. I never expected we'd get something like that, so — a welcome surprise.
And finally, Arrowhead is working on some huge quality-of-life improvements and fixes, including the ability to use the team-assisted reload mechanic regardless of which player has an ammunition backpack, solutions for bouncing stratagem beacons and unresponsive hellpod steering, a level cap increase to 300, and more. Thank Liberty; every time I see my turret call-in bounce off of the high ground I threw it on, I die a little inside.
Are you excited to see everything Arrowhead is working on for Helldivers 2? Let me know down below.
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