Fresh Helldivers 2 patch alert. This one’s patch 01.003.200, and it brings the latest in pointy flag tip technology, in addition to another round of weapon balancing. You’ll need that flag stabbiness too, as the latest Galactic War twist has seen the Automatons try to wrestle control of Super Earth’s space station.
Yep, stop trying to rename a city ‘Gun’ for five minutes, some stuff’s going down in HD2 that you need to be clued in on, even if its just so you can run around the room cheering at how much more effective your Flame Sentry‘ll now be.
As has become the standard for Helldivers 2 updates that pass a certain beefiness threshold, patch 01.003.200 has both notes and a video explainer that sees design director Niklas Malmborg joined by senior designer Patrik ‘Fluffy’ Lasorta to talk through the changes.
First of all, the devs have slightly reduced the time it takes your diver to get up after ragdolling, as well as boosting chest injury bleed damage because the latter was previously at a level so low that “it appeared to have no effect”. There are also a bunch of tweaks to weapons, mainly aimed at boosting how effective stunning, bayonet-induced stagger, and the firestarting capabilities of stuff like the aforementioned Flame Sentry are.
By far the most important change, however, is the following one to the Masters of Ceremony warbond‘s One True Flag stratagem. “Thanks to some groundbreaking military research into pointier flag tips, the flag can now be proudly planted directly into enemies — dead or alive — ensuring the eternal colors of Super Earth are never tainted, only quenched by the blood of its foes,” Arrowhead wrote, with Malmborg adding in the video that “a surprising amount of code” needed messing with to pull this off.
Hellpods and enemies have also undergone some tweaks, but I’m now gonna pivot to something far more urgent. A fresh Major Order dropped alongside this patch, and it’s seeing the Automatons move to secure sites key to the running of the Democracy Space Station – which the divers have been using to help further Super Earth’s goals since late last year.
Claorell, Tarsh, and Gaellivare are the planets folks are being tasked with holding to prevent the DSS being destroyed or falling into enemy hands. Arrowhead also notes that “enemy troop movements indicate this is only the first of several planned waves of attack”, meaning “additional invasions are anticipated”.
So, it looks like defending the floating hunk of metal is gonna be the next big goal.
