The really big news in Helldivers 2's surprise Omens of Tyranny update is the Illuminate invasion, but another exciting addition has come with those mind-controlling aliens: a car. Helldivers 2 now has a four-person Fast Recon Vehicle inspired by the off-road antics you see in PUBG. There's a mounted gun on the top, and players can also lean out of the windows to shoot. If the driver takes a bump poorly, though, your squad may end up ragdolling across the rocks—and that's no way to defend democracy.
There are two things you should know about FRVs right now:
- FRVs are not yet available as a Stratagem. You have to find one on the map for now.
- FRVs have two possible control schemes, and one is much trickier than the other.
Where to find a Fast Recon Vehicle
For now, FRVs can be found in the new urban districts added in the Omens of Tyranny update, called colonies. You'll encounter these in Illuminate missions, currently on Calypso. I found my first FRV at the corner of an unassuming city block, and they appear on the map as a little car icon with a machine gun.
In the future, FRVs will be available as a Stratagem so you can call one in on demand in any mission type. We'll have to complete a Major Order in the near future to unlock that ability—"Keep following the Major Orders issued by Super Earth High Command and you will get the keys to your very own FRV," the studio says. Once they're available to all, expect the unlock to cost at least 20,000 Req points, maybe more.
How to drive the Fast Recon Vehicle
By default, Helldivers 2 now has two accessibility settings turned on: "Auto Reverse Vehicles" and "Reverse Gear Inverts Throttle." These settings make FRVs control like videogame vehicles usually do. If you hold the gas, the car goes forward, and if you hold the brake, the car reverses.
With these settings on, the gear selector that appears at the bottom of the screen appears somewhat superfluous. Turn the settings off, however, and if you want to reverse, you'll have to manually switch the car into reverse with the gearbox controls (Control and Shift, or L2 and R2) and then hit the gas (W on the keyboard, RT on a controller).
I'm so used to the usual videogame control scheme, where braking also reverses, that I was completely flustered when I first got into the driver's seat of an FRV with the accessibility settings off, even though it works just like a real automatic transmission. And that's the idea.
"We want to put the player into a situation where they're challenged by the core experience to some degree," Arrowhead COO Johan Pilestedt told me. "We want somebody to become really, really good at driving a car. Therefore, we looked at real life and said, 'Okay, well, what is the experience of driving a car?' And one of the key elements that you need to figure out is how to work the gearbox.
"So the vehicle mechanics in Helldivers follow the same philosophy that we've used for a lot of the other features in the game, and that is, you have to get the car into drive before you can drive. So what will happen most of the time, when you're in a real hectic situation and you have just have to reverse a little bit, put the put the gearbox in reverse, then back off a little bit, and then get it in to drive again. And sometimes players get stuck in neutral, and they're just revving the engine, not getting anywhere. And the reason why we made it [that way], is just to allow players to get good or to crew situations up."
