Arrowhead creative director agrees Helldivers 2 needs a harder difficulty mode after the 'buff everything' patch

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Arrowhead finally dropped that big Helldivers 2 rebalancing patch that's been over a month in the making, and the word is good: The people are loving how much more powerful guns and stratagems feel across the board, and crucially, they like having way more options to take down Bile Titans, Chargers, and Hulks. The largest Terminid and Automaton threats are now less resilient against weapons many players always thought should deal more damage, like the Autocannon or Thermite Grenade, and are less oppressive as a result.

I'm digging the update too, but I'm also with user Bunny Asap, who told Arrowhead creative director Johan Pilestedt on Twitter: "Everything is great but we need a new harder difficulty now." I played with the new patch for a few hours today and noticed that, even at higher difficulty levels that I used to avoid because they were too hard, the bugs have lost a lot of their bite.

Since most support weapons and stratagems can now penetrate Charger and Bile Titan armor, my teams are killing them before they even have time to attack. I don't want to go back to the days when an Autocannon round would bounce clean off a Bile Titan's carapace, but maybe Super Earth is a little too well-equipped to dispense liberty now.

Helldivers 2 tweet — (Image credit: Bunny Asap via X)

It sounds like Pilestedt is on the same page, at least where difficulty modes are concerned, replying "I agree!" to the user. He didn't go into any further detail, but there's precedent for Arrowhead turning up the heat over time. We just got a higher difficulty mode in August's Escalation of Freedom update: Level 10 "Super Helldive". We can assume the next would be Level 11, and be called something like "Super Duper Helldive," as some fans suggest in the thread.

More time with the update could color that decision, though. We're only hours into a major adjustment for Helldivers 2—maybe the difficulty is fine overall and I just need to get used to levels 9 and 10 when I used to comfortably hang around 7 and 6. For a complete tally of what's changed, read the full patch notes, or watch Arrowhead break down the patch in the video below.

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Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.