It started with Machine of Oppression, which brought a bunch of exciting additions to the table, such as the Cyborgs and VOX Engines. The Mega Factories served as a new biome, while the Bastion Tank is a new vehicle that’s quite useful against the Cyborgs and even Illuminates if things turn out well enough.

There’s also the Siege Breakers Warbond to consider, followed by the Entrenched Division Warbond announced earlier this month. As for brand new content, the Illuminate Appropriators are next on March 20th with Update 6.1, and you can look forward to a new mission, a Galactic War campaign, and new enemy types. As for April and June, there will be a total of three new biomes, even more Galactic War campaigns, two more Warbonds, and a bunch of quality-of-life fixes coming.

That’s a lot of new content to sink our teeth into, and if you’ve been a faithful member of Super Earth’s forces from the beginning, you’re probably going to enjoy all the new opportunities to prove your loyalty. The fight for Democracy continues to be quite appealing, and we’re hoping that it continues to stay that way, even if players are still sore following the defeat in Cyberstan.

It goes live on March 20th and adds Illuminate Piloted Constructs, namely the melee-focused Veracitor and ranged Gatekeeper. The Watcher also has a new variant called the Obtruder, which can “insert itself where it is not wanted.” Here’s hoping that hints more at its teleportation capabilities than anything else. To make things even more complicated, the Appropriators sub-faction has also appeared, and they’re focused entirely on sending out Illuminate units (with plenty of constructs as back-up).

That doesn’t mean you won’t deal with the Voteless or Fleshmobs, however, especially with the new Mindless Masses threat. The weather may also play spoiler thanks to Illuminate Exostorms, which offer “high-intensity wind and lightning strikes,” apparently of varying degrees.

The ultimate goal of the Helldivers this time is to destroy the Exospire, the source of the Exostorms, which requires locating shield generators underground, overloading them, and then entering the Exospire to destroy its Dark Fluid cells. Super Earth never said it would be easy.

Of course, the update will also include balance changes and adjustments, including flamethrowers actually slowing “smaller to medium-sized enemies.” Check out some of the notes below and more details here.

Machinery of Oppression: 6.1.0

Balancing

General changes overview

Flamethrowers

• Some enemies now thinks its very inconvenient to be flamed in the face
  – smaller to medium sized enemies will in general be slower while getting flamed with a flamethrower
  – small to medium automatons, small to large terminids and small to medium illuminates will be confused and panic when getting flamed in the face. which leads to them attacking randomly

Primary weapons

AR/GL-21 One-Two

• Moved the underbarrel weapon function from down to left

Sidearms

PLAS-15 Loyalist

• Increased magazine capacity from 7 to 8
• Shorter charger-up time on full charge up from 1 sec to 0.75 sec

P-11 Stim Pistol

• Increase Heal effect with 100%
• Increase Muzzle velocity from 200 to 300

Stratagems

Resupply

• You can now climb it again! But the autoclimb will not climb it. It’s literally the best of both worlds!

GL-21 Grenade Launcher

• Reverted the change made in the previous patch – the launcher has medium armor penetration again

CQC-1 One True Flag

• Moved and increased the size of the melee ability
• The One True Flag is DESPISED by the enemies of Democracy. They will attempt to target anyone waving it

CQC-20 Breaching Hammer

• Increased damage from 2100 to 2200

M-1000 Maxigun

• Increased ammo capacity from 750 to 1000

LAS-98 Laser Cannon

• Increased beam length from 200m to 1000m

GL-28 Belt-Fed Grenade Launcher

• Increased ammo from 100 to 120.

GL-52 De-Escalator

• Faster reload
• Full reload around 2 second faster from around 7.5 to 5.5 sec
• One reload around 1 sec faster from around 3.5 to 2.5 sec

AC-8 Autocannon

• Faster reload
• Full reload around 1 second faster from around 5.5 sec to 4.5 sec
• Half reload around 0.5 sec faster from around 2.3 sec → 1.8 sec

B/MD C4 Pack

• Moved the switch from weapon function from right to left
• Exosuits Step damage zone
• Made the damage zone closer to the size of the legs.
• Helldivers and enemies were killed when not in close proximity
• This effects EXO-45 Patriot Exosuit and EXO-49 Emancipator Exosuit

Enemies

General

• Small to medium automatons, small to large terminids, and small to medium illuminates will be confused and panic when getting flamed in the face, which leads them to randomly attack anyone in their vicinity

As you might expect, Entrenched Division comes with a variety of new weapons and Stratagems, like the B/FLAM-80 Cremator—a heavy support flamethrower that can shoot out continuous columns of flame, fueled by a tank carried around as a backpack. The Warbond also brings with it the SMG/FLAM-34 Stoker—an SMG featuring iron sights and a separate attachment revolving around incineration. Adding on to the trench warfare themes is the A/GM-17 Gas Mortar Sentry—an automated turret that can fire gas shells—and the P-69 Veto secondary pistol, which is loaded with jet-assisted rounds for extra range.

Fans of throwables will be able to make use of the G-48 Giga Grenade, which makes up for its short throwing range by having a massive blast radius. Rounding things off is the CQC-73 Entrenchment Tool melee secondary weapon.

When it comes to armor, Entrenched Division includes the CPG-48 Sapper medium armor that offers the Grenadier passive—a variant on the Concussive Padding passive—providing resistance to explosive damage and extra room for more throwables. Helldivers that prefer light armor can use the CPH-26 Commandant, which features the Hazmat passive, providing resistance to explosive and gas damage, along with reduced recoil for sidearms. Cosmetics include the Dignity of Toil cape and player card, the Crest of the Unsullied cape and player card, along with a host of new emotes and the Heritage Olive pattern for hellpods, FRV, Pelican, and exosuits.

Helldivers 2 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The title has seen immense success since its 2024 launch, and as of January this year, has reportedly sold more than 20 million copies. For more details, check out our review of its Xbox Series X/S release.

Helldivers 2 has continued to see the release of several Warbonds since its launch, with some of the more recent ones including Siege Breakers, and Redacted Regiment. While the former focused more on frontline combat in the style of the Rambo movies, the latter instead provided more options for players that prefer stealthier approaches for their missions.

Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani recently acknowledged the numerous performance issues and bugs that have plagued Helldivers 2 since its release, noting that the studio “underinvested” in technology thanks to its use of the now-defunct Autodesk Stingray game engine.

“We’ve underinvested in our tech that we’re now finally doing something about,” he said after noting that there is never really a clear cut choice when it comes to picking a game engine. He said, “one isn’t ‘better’ than another,” and that “engines – including Unreal – yield back what you put into them.”

In the meantime, take a look at the studio’s advice for players in light of the failure of the Cyberstan offensive.

Despite the fact that Autodesk no longer supported Stingray as far back as 2018, however, the studio had decided to stick with the engine largely due to Helldivers 2 already having been well into development. Now, however, Jorjani has acknowledged that Arrowhead “underinvested” in the technology powering the co-op shooter. Matters aren’t really helped by the fact that, since Autodesk doesn’t offer any support, Arrowhead Game Studios is largely on its own whenever new issues pop up.

“We’ve underinvested in our tech that we’re now finally doing something about,” said Jorjani when asked by a Discord user whether Stingray is “still on life support”. He noted that, when it comes to game engines, “one isn’t ‘better’ than another,” and that “engines – including Unreal – yield back what you put into them.”

While Helldivers 2 has continued to see quite a few technical issues, especially when major updates like last year’s Into the Unjust roll around, Jorjani has noted that the studio continues to make improvements to the game engine to make sure future releases are smooth. “I think we’re better (our stats and sentiment confirm it),” Jorjani said, “but we’re still not happy and things can/will be better.”

However, considering Jorjani’s desire for Helldivers 2 to be a “forever game”, Arrowhead Game Studios will have to continue to make improvements to the Stingray engine by itself. Jorjani had spoken about this desire back in September, noting that there are “no plans for [Helldivers 3] – just [Helldivers 2] for as long as it can go”. He brought up classic MMORPG RuneScape for the sake of comparison when it comes to the longevity of a game.

“Myself and the directors agree we would love this to be a forever game,” Jorjani wrote. “Assuming we get a grip on the performance and dev practices we can keep expanding it for a long time. PlayStation is super supportive.”

Among the technical issues plaguing the co-op shooter were game crashes that were seemingly caused from too many particle effects being created in the course of regular gameplay. Thankfully, however, the studio quickly released an update to fix this issue, along with fixing another one where the game could crash while Helldivers were in Hellpods after being reinforced.

Despite these technical issues, however, Helldivers 2 has continued to see quite a bit of success. A report from January indicated that more than 20 million copies of the co-op shooter had been sold so far. Taking the report at face value and not factoring in any of the microtransactions or premium Warbonds, this means that Arrowhead Game Studios has made gross revenue of more than $700 million.

Helldivers 2 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Well, the results are in and surprisingly, the Helldivers failed, even with new toys like an explosive hammer and the Bastion Tank. “The underhanded, subhuman treachery of the Cyborgs returned to once again steal peace from Super Earth’s citizens. The threat of a socialist planet-killer remains active. This is a grotesque travesty of Justice,” reads the official, in-universe tweet about what went down. While exposing the Cyborgs is deemed beneficial, Super Earth is currently in a “strategic contraction phase.”

“We must retract and regroup to prepare for the inevitable, unjust counter-offensive from the surviving socialist menace,” it reads. Which is probably a nice way of saying that the Automatons could attack Super Earth or any supporting location when players least expect it.

Regardless, this is an interesting twist in the ongoing Galactic War. Far be it from the Helldivers to suffer massive defeats under near-impossible odds, but this still felt imminently achievable. Whatever happens next, we’re keen to see how the story develops further, especially since the Battle for Cyberstan marked Arrowhead delivering new meta gameplay on a far more ambitious scale than anything before.

Available for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, Helldivers 2 reportedly passed 20 million lifetime sales last month, which is pretty good news for PlayStation’s live-service initiative (numerous failures notwithstanding). Stay tuned for more updates on what’s next in the coming weeks.

The post is a the latest iteration of the Xbox Excellence Awards, which was created last year to celebrate how players engaged with various releases on Xbox. The Store Rating category lists 2025 games with the best ratings on the Microsoft Store, with an added requirement of the title having at least 500 ratings. Player Engagements is about the average number of hours spent on a game by each player within the first six weeks of a game’s release. Daily Active Users celebrates titles, expansions or updates with the highest single-day active users throughout the year. And finally Units Sold is fairly self-explanatory.

Going down the lists, you’ll find many of the biggest releases of the year, from ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6, as well as award-winning RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Indie titles have also been well-represented, with games like Crime Scene Cleaner and Satisfactory making it into the lists. There also doesn’t seem to have been a singular genre to dominate the lists, since everything from sports games like EA Sports Madden NFL 26, to fantasy adventure life sims like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and even fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are well represented.

Curiously, none of the games was present in all four of the categories. At most, we got to see titles like Borderlands 4 being able to make it on to three of them: Player Engagement, Daily Active Users and Units Sold. Even ARC Raiders, which has seen quite a bit of success, is only on the Units Sold and Daily Active Users lists.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the lists represent a diverse collection of games developed by studios of varying sizes. All in all, it represents 48 unique developers based out of 13 countries, with 24 publishers having had a hand in their release. 19 of the games were self-published. “Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are,” wrote the company.

Full list of games:

Store Rating:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dreamcore
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Lies of P: Overture
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Little Nightmares III
• Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
• Minami Lane
• Mullet MadJack
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 4
• Satisfactory
• Silent Hill 2
• Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Player Engagement:

• Borderlands 4
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Farm Together 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
• Helldivers 2
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• NHL 26
• Rust
• Satisfactory
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Daily Active Users:

• Arc Raiders
• Avowed
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 5
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grounded 2
• Helldivers 2
• Marvel Rivals
• Minecraft
• NBA 2K26
• Rematch
• Roblox
• Rocket League
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold:

• Arc Raiders
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• EA Sports Madden NFL 26
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Helldivers 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• PGA Tour 2K25
• Ready or Not
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• WWE 2K25

Cyberstan is littered with massive factory cities powering the machines’ war efforts, through which players fight against hordes of Automatons and Cyborgs. The goal for players with this update is to destabilize Cyberstan enough to ultimately stop the production of more Cyborgs while simultaneously dealing with Automaton defenses.

Things won’t quite be easy, however, as the returning Cyborgs are composed of three distinct types of enemies: the Agitators, the Radicals, and the Vox Engines. The Agitators command Automaton legions in the field and tend to be heavily armored and capable of making tactical decisions for entire squads. The Radicals focus more on close-range combat and tend to rush at Helldivers from all sides. Vox Machines are massive war machines piloted by high-ranking Cyborg officers, and are armed with dual laser cannons, rockets, and laser gatling guns.

Missions taking place on Cyberstan also come with greater risks than other planets. There is a brand new Galactic Reinforcement Counter, which means that the entire battle for the Automatons’ home planet has limited revives. If the counter reaches zero, the Battle for Cyberstan will be considered lost. To deal with this, the studio says players should pay attention to keeping themselves and their squadmates alive by bringing defensive Stratagems and using Stims appropriately.

Earlier this week, Helldivers 2 director Mikael Eriksson had spoken about the Machinery of Oppression update, referring to it as the “most ambitious” update that the studio has developed for the co-op shooter so far. He also noted that the Battle for Cyberstan will see further expansion with “many ambitious plans”.

“We still have many ambitious plans on how to expand on this even further, but for this time, the Battle for Cyberstan will be the most ambitious one yet, with a new type of meta gameplay,” he said. “So it would be much more clear now for players what the consequences would be depending on how they choose to tackle this. So they can attack the planet from many different angles, and it would be very obvious when players get there, what the consequences are and what’s at stake.”

To help players out with more defensive options, Arrowhead Game Studios also recently released its Siege Breakers Warbond, which brought in defense-oriented armors and close-range weapons.

Helldivers 2 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The title has been quite popular since its release back in 2024. A recent report has indicated that it has sold more than 20 million units so far.

And while this may seem like another massive battle that the Helldivers will emerge victorious in, Arrowhead has something else in mind. Speaking to IGN, game director Mikael Eriksson revealed that Battle for Cyberstan is the “most ambitious” update yet for the team.

“One of the central points of Helldivers is that we play the game together with the community, and the actions of the community are not known to us, and the outcomes are not predetermined. This has been the case since launch, but of course, we’ve tried to expand on this with almost every update to make this more impactful and to make it more obvious what the different outcomes are and what the consequences will be.

“We still have many ambitious plans on how to expand on this even further, but for this time, the Battle for Cyberstan will be the most ambitious one yet, with a new type of meta gameplay. So it would be much more clear now for players what the consequences would be depending on how they choose to tackle this. So they can attack the planet from many different angles, and it would be very obvious when players get there, what the consequences are and what’s at stake.”

Of course, as Eriksson likes to emphasize, success is not a given, and even the development team doesn’t know how the dust will settle. “Again, the outcome is not predetermined, so we don’t know what will happen. Players can win, and players can lose, and it’s going to be super fun to see that play out. Last time, with the Battle for Super Earth, which I think was maybe the biggest one before this, we also didn’t know.

“Eventually, players actually managed to defend Super Earth, which was super cool to see. Following that was pure fun for everyone at the office except for maybe the Game Master, who was sweating a little bit, but for everyone else it was fun to see.”

The whole march towards Cyberstan began when the Automatons stole the schematics for Super Earth’s latest weapon, the Star of Peace. Seems straightforward enough, but why has the faction become so brazen? We’ll probably find out starting tomorrow, but alongside the Cyborgs, players must also face off against new Automaton tanks, which evoke Skynet’s armada from the Terminator films. That’s not including the massive Automaton cities with their hostile architecture.

Helldivers 2 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and it’s reportedly sold over 20 million units to date. Check out our review for the Xbox Series X/S version, which launched last August, here.

Enemies have also received adjustments, ranging from damage changes to Automatons on higher difficulties having better aim. For more details, check out the full patch notes below.

The Siege Breakers Warbond Premium Warbond was unveiled last week and focuses on close-range engagements. Among its new weapons is the LAS-16 Trident, which functions like a laser-based shotgun that can fire six beams at the pull of the trigger. The CQC-20 Breaching Hammer is a new Stratagem that similarly encourages players to get up close and personal with their enemies. Other new additions include the GL-28 Belt-Fed Grenade Launcher and the EAT-411 Leveller.

Helldivers 2 has also ended up being quite a major success story for Arrowhead Game Studios. While it has always enjoyed a high number of players, a recent report indicates that it has sold more than 20 million copies at this point, translating to gross revenue of over $700 million. The co-op shooter is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Helldivers 2: Into the Unjust 6.0.1 patch notes:

Balancing

General changes overview

Melee weapons and Armor passive with increased melee damage re-balance

• Intent is to make the Armor passive that increases melee damage less mandatory, but still be useful to make melee weapons more effective.
• We increased all the melee weapons damage and decreased the modifiers on the armor passives that increase melee damage.
• Total damage with the melee armor passive will be higher or the same as before.
• Base melee attack also got a 50% damage increase.

SMG and Pistol rounds less Sway

• The intent is that the increased drag of SMG and Pistol, which makes it a close combat weapon and less effective at range, is the main characteristic of these weapons.
• We decreased the Sway modifier to be the same as most other weapons

Unify Weapon function directions inputs

• The intent is to make the “weapon function modes” that are similar to be on the same “weapon function direction input”.
• This is to make it easier to remember which direction similar types of weapon functions are and also make it so you need to use fewer “quick weapon functions” inputs.
• Weapon function modes that affect Programmable ammo, Ammo types, Volley modes, Safe modes, Guided modes will now be in the left direction.
• We have not moved the underbarrel weapon switching option to the left yet, but we are looking into moving it to the left direction so all ammo altering switching is in the left direction, even if it is an underbarrel selection that usually is in the down direction.

Difficulty on difficulty 9+

Made changes across all factions to increase the intensity on high difficulties, the biggest change should be noticed on the Automaton front, while Terminids and the Illuminate are less affected.

Value changes

Primary weapons

R-2124 Constitution

• Increased Bayonet melee damage from 110 to 165
• Increased Bayonet melee durable damage from 55 to 83

R-2 Amendment

• Increased Bayonet melee damage from 110 to 165
• Increased Bayonet melee durable damage from 55 to 83

MP-98 Knight

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

SMG-37 Defender

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

SMG-72 Pummeler

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

M7S SMG

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

SG-20 Halt

• Move the “ammo type” weapon function from Right to Left weapon function direction

DBS-2 Double Freedom

• Move the “Volley/Semi mode” weapon function from Right to Left weapon function direction

Sidearms weapons

P-72 Crisper

• Increased magazine capacity from 30 to 50
• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

P-2 Peacemaker

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

LAS-58 Talon

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

GP-31 Grenade Pistol

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

LAS-7 Dagger

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

P-113 Verdict

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

M6C/SOCOM Pistol

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

PLAS-15 Loyalist

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

P-11 Stim Pistol

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.2 to 1

SG-22 Bushwhacker

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.3 to 1
• Move the “Volley/Semi mode” weapon function from Right to Left weapon function direction

P-4 Senator

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.3 to 1

GP-20 Ultimatum

• Decreased sway modifier from 1.3 to 1

CQC-30 Stun Baton

• Increased damage from 50 to 75
• Increased durable damage from 25 to 38

CQC-19 Stun Lance

• Increased damage from 110 to 165
• Increased durable damage from 55 to 83

CQC-2 Saber

• Increased damage from 125 to 188
• Increased durable damage from 65 to 98

CQC-5 Combat Hatchet

• Increased damage from 160 to 240
• Increased durable damage from 80 to 120

CQC-42 Machete

• Increased damage from 200 to 300
• Increased durable damage from 100 to 150

Throwables

G-7 Pineapple

• Increased max amount uses 3 to 4
• Increased start amount uses 2 to 3

G-31 Arc

• Increased max amount uses 4 to 5
• Increased start amount uses 3 to 4

Stratagems

SH-20 Ballistic Shield Backpack

• Shorter cooldown from 300 to 240 sec

Orbital Smoke Strike

• Shorter cooldown from 100 to 75 sec

CQC-9 Defoliation Tool

• Increased damage from 300 to 450
• Increased durable damage from 150 to 225

CQC-1 One True Flag

• Increased damage from 110 to 200
• Increased durable damage from 55 to 100

RS-422 Railgun

• Move the “Safe/Unsafe mode” weapon function from Right to Left weapon function direction

StA-X3 W.A.S.P. Launcher

• Move the “Programmable ammo mode” weapon function from Right to Left weapon function direction

GL-21 Grenade Launcher

• Increased armor penetration level from Medium to Heavy

Armor passives

Peak Physique

• Decreased melee damage bonus from 100% to 40%

Rock Solid

• Decreased melee damage bonus from 100% to 40%

Reinforced Epaulettes

• Decreased melee damage bonus from 50% to 20%

Enemies

General

Terminids

Dragon roach

• lowered the direct damage from the flame attack by 25%

Automatons

Rocket Raider

• Rockets now deals increased damage vs Durable targets

Devastator

• Removed durable on arms

Rocket Devastator

• Rockets now deals increased damage vs Durable targets

Hulk Bruiser

• Rockets now deals increased damage vs Durable targets

Gunship

• updated its targeting software and should now be better at hitting their targets
• Rockets now deals increased damage vs Durable targets

Illuminate

Overseer

• Overseer`s weapon now deals increased damage vs Durable targets

Crescent Overseer

• Increased force on artillery attack to stagger the Helldiver
• Increased the damage of its direct shot attack
• Crescent Overseer`s weapon now deals increased damage vs Durable targets

Gameplay

Emotes and Victory poses

Emotes and victory poses are now interchangeable. Except for a few exceptions like emotes that require 2 people, the kick and a few others, all the victory poses can now be used as emotes, and all emotes can now be used as victory poses

Fixes

Hang Detection

As part of our ongoing war against bugs and instability, we have introduced a “hang detection” feature in the PC version. If the game hangs (freezes) for more than 20 seconds, then this new feature will crash the game instead of letting it stay hung. This generates a file called a “crash dump” which contains important debugging information for our programmers to diagnose and fix the root cause of the hang.

If you experience a hang, please wait at least 40 seconds before restarting your PC to allow the hang detector to do its job.

If you experience a 20+ second hang followed by a crash:

• If the crash reporting window shows up, then please submit the report as usual.
• If the crash reporting window doesn’t show up (it can fail), we humbly request that you share the crash dump file with our player support team (https://arrowhead.zendesk.com/). They will be able to assist you in locating and sharing the crash dump file.

With your help, we can eliminate these issues once and for all!

Crash Fixes

• Fixed a rare crash caused by weapon customization desynchronization
• Fixed a rare crash that would occur when players would access the Galactic Map
• Fixed a crash caused by Automatons in Lava Missions

Weapons & Stratagem Fixes

• The RS-422 Railgun magazine during reload animation is now visible
• When finishing an Eradication mission after the mission time has run out, an over-zealous second Pelican pilot will no longer heroically try to extract our noble Helldivers if another is already en route
• AX/FLAM-75 “Guard Dog” Hot Dog has its sound effects fixed
• AR/GL-21 One-Two underbarrel explosions sound effects are now fixed
• MLS-4X Commando rockets will now target properly, rather than targeting the last place the Helldiver aims at
• Fixed an issue where the R-36 Eruptor displayed incorrect zoom level options when using non-zoomed scope attachments
• Fixed a bug where the B-1 Supply Pack would give infinite supplies when dropped
• Fixed the visual glitches that appear in the preview section of the Weapon Customization Menu
• Helldivers can now reload whilst inside an M-102 Fast Reconnaissance Vehicle
• B-1 Supply Pack can no longer be used on Helldivers when their ammo, grenades and stims are full
• Fixed bug where story campaign operations would not persist between game sessions
• Projectiles from turret stratagems will now also hit their owners
• The Ministry of Defense has installed scrubbing chips on the Ground All-Terrain Extraction Rig, preventing accidental lock-on by smart weaponry
• RS-422 Railgun now properly displays the clip during the Reload animation if the player reloads the weapon immediately after firing
• When cancelling a reload after a new projectile was made visible, but before it was put into the weapon; the weapon would display the new shell in the weapon, even with the weapon empty. The weapons will now correctly display if they are ready to fire or not
• Heat-based weapons are now displaying overheating properly, in the Weapon Function Menu
• Kills with “One True Flag” will now count towards Major Order kills
• Fixed the M-1000 Maxigun wind-up sounds which would sometimes not play properly
• Player can no longer throw multiple stratagems after entering and exiting emplacements
• Grenade launcher shots and explosions from AR/GL-21 One-Two rifle should now be visible when shot by other players

P-92 Warrant

• Made the drag and gravity the same on the non-guided projectile as the last patch change for the guided projectile.
• Move the “Guided mode/None Guided mode” weapon function from Right to Left weapon function direction
• Fixed its crosshair not updating when toggling its weapon function through the new input bindings

Enemies

• Enemies have learned how to target better
• Fixed spawn rate on Rapid Acquisition missions on difficulty CR7-10. Adjusted spawn points on Rapid Acquisition map

Miscellaneous Fixes

• Automaton dropships will now move less erratically when dropping enemies
• Fix incorrect camera positioning when transitioning to first person while reloading
• Fixed an issue where players could land on Command Bunkers in city missions
• Fixed certain items not being interactable inside specific PoIs on Magma planets
• Solved terrain height changing when approaching or moving away from a deformed piece of terrain, causing a weird visual effect
• Exiting a vehicle now properly inherits the vehicle`s velocity
• High-Command has now authorized Commando Operations to be carried out on all Automaton-controlled planets. They will frequently be available to choose alongside the regular Peace Keeping Operations going forward
• Fix damage inconsistencies between client and host damage. Clients should no longer do less damage than the host
• Players no longer get stuck under the bridge during Rapid Acquisition missions
• The Helldiver properly follows hand position protocols when activating power stations
• Camera correctly points towards the Helldiver during the push-up emote
• The battery light will now turn off after its delivery during “Seize Fusion Batteries” objective
• Draw! Emote no longer locks melee weapons
• Adjusted Automaton scanner glow – they will no longer shine white whilst scanning for Helldivers
• The Super Earth Flag is now correctly playing the Super Earth Anthem when using the stratagem during Hive World Missions
• The Helldiver now moves their hands away from terminal screens to not block sight to whoever is looking over their shoulder
• [Xbox Only] Smoke will no longer display green artifacts on red planets
• The Guard Dog series of stratagems have had their names shortened to improve readability. They’re still your loyal companions, but now with shorter, easier to read names.

Optimizations

• We improved fog density/visibility between Volumetric Fog Quality settings, making the Lowest and Low settings match
• Improved performance of building material found in colonies and cities
• Removed the light-source that was attached to the Helldiver, which was used for making dark environments brighter near the player; tweaked and improved playability and visibility in darker environments instead
• Fixed an issue that was causing some players to get a “10002026” error during login attempt
• Implemented performance improvements affecting explosions and general destruction, primarily surrounding bot factories

In case the nearly 793,500 user reviews didn’t give it away, Steam is the primary audience for Helldivers 2, reportedly contributing 13.1 million sales to the lifetime total. Alinea’s data also notes extensive crossover with other co-op titles on the platform, with 64 percent of the audience having played Left 4 Dead 2 (Lethal Company is next at 52 percent).

PlayStation 5 apparently contributed about 5.6 million units, but we’d be remiss not to mention the Xbox Series X/S version. Launched in August 2025 to coincide with a new Halo 3: ODST Legendary Warbond, it apparently contributed 1.6 million sales to the current milestone.

Across all platforms, Helldivers 2 is estimated to have had 3.6 million players this month. It’s showing no signs of slowing down either, especially with the next Premium Warbond, Siege Breakers, out on February 3rd. Alongside new defensive armor sets, it features an explosive sledgehammer, shield, a shotgun variant of the LAS-16, and more.