Helldivers 2 developers Arrowhead have shared some of their plans to improve the shooter’s long-running galactic war starting this summer. Weekly major orders – the overarching goals players are given to help guide them towards certain missions that mesh with where the war’s story is currently at, will grow into “longer, multi-week themed campaigns”. Better rewards and more “branching outcomes” are also in the studio’s sights.
These plans have been laid out in a blog post Arrowhead have penned to address some concerns/moanings the game’s community have raised of late. “Right now, a major focus for the team is improving meta-progression and the Galactic War,” they wrote. “We’ve significantly expanded the team working in this area, reflecting how important these long-term systems are for the overall player experience.”
There are three central prongs to these galactic war improvements, which are slated to start rolling out this summer. Arrowhead want to offer “more meaningful rewards and community progression systems, while “evolving major orders into longer, multi-week themed campaigns” and working in “branching outcomes that create clearer stakes and consequences based on player actions”. The latter two suggest to me this is mainly about trying to make sure the war stays engaging during the inevitable lulls between big developments like new factions arriving or key bug-swatting offensives.
In my experience, when one of those is in full swing, there’s usually plenty of built-up narrative and twists based on what’s happening to keep people coming back. It’s in the quieter moments that things suffer, especially with new online shooters regularly popping up to tempt Helldivers enjoyers away.
Beyond those plans, Arrowhead also used this is a chance to address concerns like last month’s Exo Experts warbond adding two new exosuits in the form of the EXO-51 Lumberer and the EXO-55 Breakthrough. Previously, mech suits like these have arrived for free through gameplay, and while you can earn the in-game currency required to buy warbonds just by playing Helldivers 2, sticking two exosuits in one had prompted some worrying that this might be the only way such kit arrived in future.
“The goal with the Exo Experts Warbond was to create something that felt thematically strong and exciting, with exosuits as a core part of that fantasy,” the studio wrote. “That said, we’ve seen the feedback around how that landed – especially when it comes to expectations around how players unlock major gameplay items like exosuits. More broadly, we want to strike the right balance between what’s included in Warbonds and what’s available through gameplay, so that rewards feel both exciting and fair. And to be clear – yes, you will be getting other vehicles through gameplay in the future.”
Finally, Arrowhead revealed they have “teams actively working on both new red stratagems, evolving ships, and player progression to level 150…and beyond”.
It’s well worth reading the full thing if you’re considering hopping back into Helldivers 2 soon, even if the game’s been in one of its natural lulls between big happenings lately.
