The next Helldivers 2 warbond is going superscience sicko mode with a seven-barreled assault rifle, a plasma cannon, and a wormhole-generating backpack that lets you warp around the battlefield

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They might be as lethal for the user as they are for the target, but that's the price of progress.

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After spending months in the field using Helldivers 2's explosive crossbows, lightning-throwers, and orbital railguns, "reserved" is never a word I would think to use to describe the armaments of the Super Earth military. And yet, after seeing the sheer amount of nonsense tech packed into the next HD2 warbond, Control Group, I can't help but feel like Super Earth R&D has been holding back.

(Image credit: PlayStation Publishing)

While it's equipped with the full auto you'd expect, the VG-70's also got two other firing modes to choose from. There's the "volley" mode, which puts all seven barrels to good use by firing simultaneous shots from each of them. And then there's the "total" mode, which simply expends all its remaining ammo in an instant for a moment of singularly devastating, medically inadvisable firepower.

In the Control Group warbond trailer linked above, you can see the force of that particular tactical gambit knocking the Helldiver fully off their feet as they fire it. To the VG-70's credit, it does immediately decommission an automaton hulk in the process, so you can't say it's not effective.

Also on offer is a new arc grenade that dishes out chain lightning as it bounces, a stationary laser sentry stratagem that can apparently explode if it's forced to fire continuously for long enough that it critically overheats, and a plasma cannon support weapon that—you guessed it—will detonate if you overcharge it.

(Image credit: PlayStation Publishing)

Unlike the existing railgun support weapon, it doesn't have a safe mode to prevent said overcharging. Best of luck.

The warbond's pièce de résistance, if you'll pardon my Super French, is the LIFT-182 Warp Pack, a new backpack stratagem that can "generate a (somewhat) stable wormhole on demand," allowing the user to warp jump around the battlefield. Arrowhead notes that, while you can warp without cooldown, each jump will strain the wormhole, "and the wearer may experience death should the singularity fully collapse."

But hey, if you are squelched into an infinitely-dense particle thanks to your wanton abuse of the fabric of spacetime, you can at least look cool doing it with one of the warbond's two new armor sets. And each one has a new Adreno-Defibrillator passive ability that'll revive you to full health once per deployment!

Unfortunately, you will continually lose health after you're revived. Life's about give and take.

The Control Group warbond will hit Helldivers 2 on July 17.

Lincoln Carpenter
Lincoln Carpenter
News Writer

Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

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