Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Video games introduced earlier this yr that it would be slowing down its replace cadence to ship larger, beefier patches—and so they actually meant it.
Introduced earlier in the present day, The Escalation of Freedom is a serious free replace arriving subsequent month that’ll be bringing new enemies, mission targets, a contemporary biome, a good more durable issue, and a intelligent tackle votekick safety.
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First up, the large bads: The Terminids have been given the Impaler, a very accursed batch of large tentacles that’ll erupt from the bottom to chop you off—although you may nonetheless knock ’em down if you would like. There’s additionally the Spore Charger, an enormous model of the bug’s fearsome tanks that’re accompanied by their very own smoke cloud, alongside larger and badder Brood Commanders.
The Automatons’ll get new toys, too. We solely get to see one among them, however they produce other “surprises” in retailer in accordance with the sport’s official weblog—I am undecided what can worsen than a large tank with an artillery battery strapped to the highest of it, however I am eager to seek out out.
As if the existence of those new terrors wasn’t sufficient to fill your standard-issue helmet with tears, there’s additionally going to be a brand new issue degree: Tremendous Helldive, the place these horrors will presumably take centre-stage.
In the case of the missions themselves, there is a new spooky swamp biome, bigger outposts to siege, and extra targets corresponding to one the place you steal a crying child. I imply democratise a soulless Terminid larva that is crying, drawing bugs to your place. There’s additionally an acid storm, which’ll cut back each your and your enemy’s armour.
The video above guarantees that this is not the complete gauntlet of options within the replace, although one factor talked about within the weblog caught my eye—a change “to mitigate the issue of grief kicking in Helldivers 2.”
Merely put, you will nonetheless be capable to kick gamers willy-nilly—nonetheless, for those who accomplish that, they’re going to spawn into their very own session with a replica of all their staff’s earlier loot. How precisely this’ll be dealt with—whether or not you will be put at an equal spot in your mission, or for those who’ll simply need to do one other mission with further goodies to seek out—is unclear.
Nonetheless, it looks like a reasonably novel strategy to deal with grief kick safety, which might typically be a Catch 22 for builders. Make it too exhausting in addition somebody, and also you give griefers a giant window to trigger havoc—make it too straightforward, and also you give those self same griefers the power to waste 40 minutes of their unlucky victims’ time.
The Escalation of Freedom plans to launch August 6, and I am curious to see what else Arrowhead Video games has tucked away in its quiver. It will be attention-grabbing, too, to see how the studio continues to flesh out its Galactic Warfare—a novel mechanic that is had excessive highs and low lows for the stay service success story.