Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead’s CCO Johan Pilestedt has popped up on Discord again, this time to tease the effects that the studio believes the next balancing update it has in the works will have. In short, it sounds like a big change is being targeted, with the aim of brining the game a lot closer to the kind of experience many vocal players have suggested they’d prefer.While there’ve been plenty of Major Orders to be getting on with while you wait for info, Arrowhead’s generally kept its cards pretty close to its chest in terms of specfics regarding updates that’ll be coming as part of the ongoing 60-day plan it outlined last month. That said, studio CCO Johan Pilestedt has been getting back to answering player questions in the game’s official Discord, with his latest foray into the server having seen him discuss an upcoming patch.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings “So, a quick update,” the developer wrote just before the weekend, “I have been working closely with the team to look at the game experience (balance mostly). We are confident in the update that we are creating that [it] will see a significant meta shift and bring the game into a state where the playfulness takes the front seat and challenge is secondary. I have had a good time with the experience shift, and it is closer to the original intent of the game and what it was at launch.”In response to one player suggesting that last part didn’t instill them with confidence, Pilestedt added: “We have seen internally that there has been a shift in what that is. Balance and ‘nerfing’ and ‘buffing’ are elements that we during the majority of development avoided, we focused on making an experience that made sense. After launch I think the discussion of “meta”, “data informed” and “balance” took the overhand and replaced our focus on creating a fun, playful and fantasy driven experience.”He then got into the nitty-gritty a bit in terms of adressing questions about specific elements and mechanics, saying “the new update will see the auto cannon and AMR be effective against chargers”, and adding that fixes for the 500KG bomb and crosshairs not behaving as they should are on the way at some point. Image credit: VG247As to when the balancing update he discussed will be arriving, Pilestedt simply said: “Valve soon (TM)”. “Anyhow, I am spilling too many beans. But I hope you are as excited by this update as I am. The game is more dynamic, more believable and more tools are useful,” he said towards the end of this Discord chat.Though, he also encouraged players to maintain some healthy sceptiscism, adding: “Don’t be overly hyped based on my beam spill, it’s too easy to get disappointed. The proof is in the pudding.”How do you feel about what Pilestedt said here and about the general state of Helldivers 2 right now? Let us know below!
Home
News
Helldivers 2's Pilestedt says Arrowhead's "confident" its next balancing update "will see a significant meta shift" and bring fun to the fore
Related Posts
UPDATE (21/08/24, 12:55 PM BST): Arrowhead has just issued another patch for Helldivers 2, this time aiming to rectify just one issue: “a common crash that occurs when killing the Impaler inside a Stronghold”. “This patch is an emergency hot fix addressing the Impaler crash. We deemed it worth bringing this one crash fix in now in an attempt to minimize the crashes during the weekend. Thank you for your understanding,” the studio wrote.Good news, people who’ve been unhappy about the state of Helldivers 2 since the deployment of the Escalation of Freedom update, there’s a fresh patch out and it very much looks to be the first step on Arrowhead’s road to addressing all of the complaints.If you’re out of the loop, the studio’s previously outlined a 60-day plan of…
Read moreNeed even more fighting games in your collection? Capcom Fighting Collection 2 should help out with that.Capcom announced a brand new Fighting Collection during today’s Nintendo Direct, adding in some more, underrated fighting game classics to your ever-growing collection. There’ll be eight games in total in the collection, and includes: Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro, Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001, Capcom Fighting Evolution, Street Fighter Alpha 3 UPPER, Project Justice, Power Stone, Power Stone 2, and Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein. These ones are definitely more for the hardcore fighting game fans, but still, Capcom’s commitment to keeping its back catalogue alive is still worth commending.Capcom Fighting Collection 2 – Announcement Trailer – …
Read moreThe Black Ops 6 beta, which kicked off over the weekend, has been a little polarising. Call of Duty players are split on the new changes to movement and time to kill. And though many are having fun with the new body shield/hostage mechanic, there’s been a lot of complaints about game feel in the beta’s first couple of days.One thing that everyone agrees on, however, is just how incredibly slow weapon levelling in the beta has been. It’s so slow, in fact, it feels like a bug.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings You’re not imagining things; it really does take multiple games to unlock even a basic set of attachments for your chosen weapon. The good news is that the weapon XP earn rate in the Black Ops 6 beta is, indeed, not the on…
Read moreDragon Ball Daima finally has a release date, and it sounds like fans of the series are in for a good October.It’s generally always a pretty good time to be a Dragon Ball fan, but October 11 in particular is going to be a very good day to be one. It was already known that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, the return of the fan favourite Budokai series, was set to launch that day, but as reported by Mantan Web, Dragon Ball Daima, the newest anime based on the classic franchise, is coming October 11 too. It’ll be airing on Fuji Television at 11:40pm JST, which obviously isn’t much help for the international audience, but it’s still good to know that it’ll be airing in just over a month’s time.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Yuichi Nakajima, head of progr…
Read moreThe creative director of Star Wars Outlaws has seen your complaints about some of the early stealth missions, and promises some changes are coming.Probably one of the most universally hated mechanics in games is stealth. Don’t get me wrong, a good stealth game like Metal Gear Solid or Dishonored makes playing sneakily fun, but when it’s in games where stealth isn’t the entire point, it can sometimes end up being a bit frustrating, particularly when there are moments that you can instantly fail. Star Wars Outlaws is the most recent game to fall victim to this, but luckily it sounds like some improvements are coming in a patch some time in the near future.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings The game’s creative director Julian Gerighty was recently asked…
Read moreAstro Bot has been delighting many a player with all of its cameos and references, and it seems like a few more could be on the way.For better or worse, Astro Bot is essentially a massive love letter to PlayStation games past, though it does feature plenty of characters that aren’t exclusive to the platform (though frequently have a strong connection to). There are a ton of cameos featured in the game, from classics like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, to the more recent Sony tentpoles like God of War. And as spotted by VGC, the game’s credits, there’s a list of thanks to various developers like Konami and Sega, as well as more, because of their respective appearances in Astro Bot. Except oddly, there are also a few mentions of titles that don’t make any kind of appearance in the game in cameo …
Read moreWelp, not everything from the ’80s can make a comeback, as Apple’s Time Bandits series has already been cancelled.A couple of months ago, the first season of Time Bandits started airing on Apple TV+, but I doubt most of you knew that because clearly it didn’t do well enough to be renewed for a second season. As reported by Deadline, the iPhone maker’s streaming service has decided to not go ahead with a second season about a month after the last episode was released. If this comes as a surprise to you, I’m not really sure why, as on Metacritic the show sits at 66/100 on the critics side of things, with only 4.6/10 on the user score. That’s not a great start for a first season of television, especially in an era where shows need to be massive hits to have any chance of getting renewed.To se…
Read moreTo the surprise of absolutely no one, Hollywood appears to have taken the wrong lesson from Barbie’s success (it only worked because there was an interesting creative vision behind it), and now we’re facing an even deeper sea of slop built around brands. Up next: Cola Wars, from acclaimed producer Steven Spielberg and with comedy master Judd Apatow in the director’s chair.To be fair, Deadline’s report states this will be a movie based on the true story behind the Coca-Cola and Pepsi conflict, but who the hell cares anyway?To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Spielberg will produce the project, which had been in development for a while at Sony, through his Amblin Entertainment banner. It was bought “as a pitch” for $1 million-plus earlier this year by t…
Read moreThe somewhat-awaited launch of Final Fantasy 16 on PC is here, nearly 15 months after the game’s initial release on PS5. The PC version arrived on Tuesday, available for purchase on Steam and the Epic Games Store.So far, the reception has been… fairly lukewarm, even compared to the already small blip its predecessor, Final Fantasy 15, achieved at its launch – at least looking at it through the Steam prism.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings In its first few hours of release, Final Fantasy 16 peaked at 16,947 concurrent players on Steam (via SteamDB), which is a fairly low turnout for such a high profile game. That figure started out even lower than that, and grew over the course of several hours, before it plateaued. It may well grow toda…
Read moreHelldivers 2’s much-hyped Patch 1.001.100 dropped yesterday, with enough buffs and tweaks that you might just have finished reading through the patch notes by now. Thus far, plenty of players are flocking back to the game to try it out, and Arrowhead’s issued a fresh Major Order to give them something to do other than waxing lyrical about loving the changes.If you missed the patch’s arrival yesterday, or are just getting back into the game after putting it down for a bit, it’s well worth checking out our rundown of what it features, including the stuff Arrowhead had announced beforehand.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings So, how are the early returns this big shot from Arrowhead at restoring the feeling as part of its ongoing plans for the game? Well…
Read more