Helldivers 2 Patch Adds Fire Tornadoes, Meteor Showers, and More

Arrowhead Game Studios is now focusing on its post-launch plans for Helldivers 2, having recently also confirmed the upcoming addition of mechs, and while it remains to be seen what major content and feature additions we can expect from the co-op shooter going forward, new patches are continuing to be released at a steady clip. Another one of those has gone live now, and it actually does add a neat new mechanic to the game.

Specifically, Helldivers 2’s latest patch has brought with it planetary hazards, which means “many” planets (so not all) will now also throw unique environmental hazards your way in the form of things such as fire tornadoes, meteor showers, and “many” more. You know, in case things in Helldivers 2 don’t get chaotic enough already. Arrowhead says these hazards will “appear at random while you are deployed”.

Additionally, the patch also makes several balancing changes to weapons and stratagems, addresses bugs and technical issues, and tweaks the Eradicate missions to make them twice as long as before by increasing the number of required kills and enemy spawns. You can check out the full patch notes below.

Helldivers 2 is available on PS5 and PC.

PATCH NOTES:

Major Updates

• Planetary Hazards active
• Many planets now have additional environmental challenges that will appear at random while you are deployed, from fire tornadoes to meteor showers and many more.

Balancing

Eradicate Missions

• Eradicate missions now require more kills and enemies spawn more often. The time to complete the mission was previously shorter than intended and should now usually take twice as long to complete.

Primary, Secondary, & Support Weapons

• Breaker: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55
• Railgun – Decreased armor penetration in Safe Mode, decreased damage against durable enemy parts
• Flamethrower: Increased damage per second by 50%
• Laser Cannon: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics
• Punisher: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet
• Breaker Spray & Pray: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26

Stratagems

• Energy Shield Backpack: Increased delay before recharging
• 380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread

Fixes

• Fixed armor rating values not reducing damage as intended.
• Fixed certain Bug Holes (including Stalker Nests) that were unnecessarily hard to destroy.
• Fixed anti-aliasing toggle not working on PS5.
• Balanced lighting across all planets to solve cases where the game was too dark.
• Improved flashlight efficacy.
• Increased visibility during “sand rain” weather on Erata Prime.
• Updated tutorial materials and lighting.
• Improved cases where some materials could look blurry if “Lighting” graphic setting was set to “Low”.
• Fixed timing issues that could occur in the “Extract E-710” primary objective.
• Changed button interaction behavior for buttons in bunker POIs. Helldivers will now let go of the button after holding it for a few seconds.
• Fixed some cases of large assets floating if the ground beneath them was blown up.
• Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion.
• Fixed unthrowable snowballs after ragdolling.
• Fixed being able to use grenades after drowning.
• Camera no longer locked on the player’s own corpse and blocking spectator mode.
• Helldivers now take damage from fire, gas etc. generated by other players.
• Armor no longer stretches when dismembered.