A major new update has been announced for Helldivers 2, and players can expect to see it on Steam and PlayStation platforms very soon. Escalation of Freedom is dropping on August 6th, and developer Arrowhead Game Studios is calling it “our biggest update yet.” Players can expect to see new enemies, new mission objectives, and the addition of Combat Rating 10: Super Helldive. All of that new content is sure to be the main highlight for players, but there are also a handful of quality of life improvements that are also designed to make the game more enjoyable for all players.ย
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The trailer for Escalation of Freedom can be found below.ย
In a post on the official PlayStation Blog, Arrowhead has stated that the new mission objectives in Helldivers 2 will not be isolated to Super Helldive and “many of our new mission objectives will be playable on other difficulty levels.” Several new enemy types have been revealed, including the Spore Charger and Terminid Alpha Commander. Fans of the original Helldivers will be happy to know that one of that game’s enemies will be making a return as well: the Impaler. In addition to new and returning Terminids, there will be new Automaton types, including the Rocket Tank. Arrowhead is teasing that other new Automaton additions are coming, but plans to keep those a surprise, for the time being.ย
As far as quality of life improvements are concerned, the game will see multiple improvements, but the only one outlined so far is a change to grief kicking. Grief kicking has been a source of controversy in the game for some time now, and while the current system will remain, Arrowhead is making a pretty significant tweak. Following the new update, players that are grief kicked from games will spawn into a new session where they’ll be the host. They will have “all of the team’s loot from their previous session. All items can now be picked up by the player before extraction.” However, the team that does the kicking will not actually lose any of their loot! It remains to be seen how well this will work in practice, but that change could alleviate a lot of the frustrations with grief kicking.ย
Are you looking forward to Escalation of Freedom? What do you think of these changes? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter atย @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky atย @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram atย @Dachampgaming!
