Take a deep breath. Listen to some birds chirping. Watch some plants sway in the gentle breeze. Ahhhhhh. Life could be a dream. At least, it could be if the new forest biomes added by Helldivers 2‘s latest patch were in a totally different game. Instead, they’re in a frantic shooter about murderdeathing space monstrosities, now with sturdier mech suits and rebalanced melee weapons at your side.
“As we push into new territories, we have discovered planets with lush, tranquil forests with winding paths and shade from massive trees,” developers Arrowhead wrote in the notes for patch 6.2.2, which goes live today (April 28th). “Underneath the peaceful tree canopies, our Citizens can take time to unwind and reflect on the glory of Managed Democracy and the good, achieved by Super Earth’s most illustrious heroes.” Ok, that’s a bit weird.
“However, not everything on these planets is what it seems. We have detected several of our Un-Democratic foes on the perimeter and there have also been some alarming signals on Gloom-infested planets – larger than the typical Terminid convoys, bearing a striking resemblance to some of the Bile Titan signals detected in other regions.” Ah, that’s more like it. These two new forest biomes will end up splattered with Terminid innards and bullet holes after all.
In addition to deploying them, Arrowhead have substantially reworked the game’s exosuits – mechs you can call down and hop aboard for extra protection – in order to make sure they can withstand more damage. Arriving alongside the Exo Experts warbond, which is adding two new exosuits in the form of the EXO-51 Lumberer and the EXO-55 Breakthrough, the changes up the suits’ main heath pools from 850 to 1600.
Whereas before they could be taken out if smaller health pools attached to specific parts were ground down, the exosuits can now only fall if their main pool drips to zero. So, keeping your mech suit upright’s now less about avoiding repeated hits from specific angles, and more about ensuring new weaknesses to the likes of acid attacks and stagger don’t see you try to tank more overall damage than the suit can take.
Outside of that, along with teasing a new Terminid enemy variant, Arrowhead have made the bugs more effective at damaging vehicles, to bring them in line with the game’s other hostile factions. Wider enemy tweaks have made a bunch of foes able to take more durable damage, but most notably the Terminid Bile Titan’s “spew explosions are smaller to match the visuals better” and the Automaton Heavy Devastator’s shield can now be destroyed. Finally, a bunch of melee sidearms have had their stamina costs lowered and a number of stratagems have been buffed to entice more folks to use them.
Not that you will be, obviously, as I’m sure your walk in the woods will be nothing but peaceful.
