Helldivers 2 is far from an easy breeze, particularly on its hardest difficulties where seemingly endless waves of mini-boss foes are out for blood. Thankfully, following widespread concerns over heavy enemy spawns, developer Arrowhead Games has called in pest control to reinforce players in the latest Helldivers 2 update.
Released today on PS5, Helldivers 2 update 1.000.102 tackles the issue of heavily armored Terminids, including enemy spawn rates and weaknesses. According to the patch notes, Chargers and Bile Titans have had their spawn rates reduced on difficulties seven and up, as well as toning down the risk of spawn spikes for these enemies. In practice, this should stop one of the best co-op games right now devolving into frantically running in circles to avoid getting squashed.
Along with this, Arrowhead is lowering the health of the Charger’s head weak spot to give you more of an incentive to deal the killing blow, rather than simply blasting its leg off to take it down. Importantly, the Charger’s legs remain the same. In other words, the pesky Charger – arguably the toughest enemy in the game – is now less of a hassle to take down.
“Together with the unfortunately undocumented change of last patch that increased the armor penetration ability of less well-placed shots for EAT-17s and Recoilless Rifle shots, Chargers should now be easier to handle by well-equipped groups.”
Expanding on these changes, Arrowhead explains that “the amount of heavily armored targets that spawn on higher difficulties, especially for Terminids, have been a big discussion point online and internally. The intent is for groups to have to bring some form of anti-tank capability but not to the degree previously needed.”
It’s important not to rest on your laurels though, as Arrowhead confirms that it has “changed the distribution of enemy types, not reduced difficulty. Expect other enemy types to appear in greater numbers instead.”
Interestingly, while Arrowhead touches on the fact that the Automatons are almost equally as troublesome when it comes to heavy enemy spawns, this faction is not being changed – at least not right now. On higher difficulties, you’ll often be met by just as many Hulks, Tanks, and Devastators as Chargers and Bile Titans. If these Terminind changes go down a hit, then the Automatons may be up next.
The full Helldivers 2 patch notes for the latest update are as follows:
- Reduced the spawn rate of Chargers and Bile Titans on difficulties 7 and up. In addition, the risk of spawn spikes of Chargers and Bile Titans has been reduced.
- Charger head health reduced.
- ‘Electronic Countermeasures operation modifier, which had a chance of giving you a random stratagem instead of the one you input, has been removed in order to be reworked, and will be reintroduced in a future iteration.
- Fixed missing text on several HUD / UI elements.
- Fixed several subtitle / VO mismatches in the news videos.
- Fixed various crashes that occurred mid-gameplay and when deploying to missions.
There are also various known issues that will hopefully be resolved sooner rather than later:
- Game crashes when attempting to use a stim while inside an Exosuit.
- Pink artifacts may appear in the sky when setting off large explosions.
- Automaton Dropship seemingly disappears and slides in after being shot down.
- Shots from arc-based weapons may not count towards kills in post-mission stats.
- Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
- Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the friend requests tab.
- Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.
- The Exosuit can destroy itself with rockets if it fires while turning.
- Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.
- Some people are unable to accept friend requests. This is mostly an issue cross platform.
These great changes come alongside a batch of popular new additions to the new PS5 game, including the long-awaited arrival of mechs and a fresh Warbond on the way very soon. Pair this with teases of the terrifying Helldivers 2 Illuminate faction and disgusting Dune-like mega-worms, and you’ve got a recipe for success. It’s no wonder that Helldivers 2 has quickly become one of the best PS5 games, and the awareness of the developers of the current plight of its players is key going forward. In fact, you can actually help improve two Helldivers 2 updates with your feedback.
As you crash down into your next mission, take a second to check out this handy Helldivers 2 galactic war tracker to make sure you’re always acting in Super Earth’s best interest. After all, we’ll need to be coordinated to take on the larger-than-ever game master team following an “emergency expansion” of the role.