Get ready for more liber-tea because Helldivers 2’s Escalation of Freedom update is coming. Here’s everything we know including its release date, all the new content coming, and changes to the game.
Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom is being billed as the game’s first major content update. This might sound a little odd given that Arrowhead has introduced major mechanics to the title for things as minor as the completion of Major Orders.
That’s how we first got pilotable mech suits and a major alteration to the Galactic War map. Other game-changing mechanics like Planetary Hazards came in smaller updates to Helldivers 2, which aren’t getting the same fanfare as this one.
So, will the Escalation of Freedom update be worth all the hubbub? Here’s everything we know about Helldivers 2’s first major update including when it drops, its new difficulty mode, and more.
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Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom update release date
Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom will be available to download for free on August 6, 2024. The date marks six months since the game’s release and the massive surge in popularity that followed.
To celebrate that, Arrowhead is bringing a tonne of new content to Helldivers 2.
New difficulty mode: Super Helldive
It’s not just freedom that’s escalating in this update. Arrowhead is adding a new tier of challenge with Combat Rating 10: Super Helldive.
An update on the PlayStation blog describes Escalating Freedom’s Super Helldive as the “most challenging, most relentless dive difficulty level yet”. The new difficulty mode will see even bigger hordes of enemies but will also offer greater rewards than we’ve seen to this point.
On top of that, Super Helldives will host some of the terrifying new enemy types coming in the Escalating Freedom update.
New enemies in Helldivers 2’s Escalating Freedom update
The Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom update will deliver a bunch of new threats to the champions of Managed Democracy. These will take some serious strategizing to take down.
The Impaler
Making its return from the first Helldivers game, The Impaler is a terrifying Terminid that poses a massive challenge. This destructive bug dominates the battlefield and demands an answer.
Alpha Commander
Alpha Commanders are Brood Commanders on steroids, or perhaps Termicide if you’re a conspiracy theory-spreading dissenter. They have stronger armor, hit harder, and will call in hordes of their fellow Terminids to overwhelm you and your team.
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Spore Chargers
Rocket Tank
This is the only Automaton that has been mentioned so far and the team behind Helldivers isn’t saying much about it. Of course, that may be because it does what it says on the box by being a tank that fires rockets.
Arrowhead did reveal that there will be more Automatons coming with Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom. Though in quite a sinister fashion, they’ve designated these new enemies as a “surprise”.
Improved outposts and mission variety
Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom isn’t just expanding the game’s roster of enemies, it’s bringing players new reasons to take them down. Devs have promised more robust enemy outposts and new mission types to make your dives more varied.
“We’ve also heard your desire for mission variation, which is why we’re bringing you new mission objectives and bigger enemy outposts for both bots and bugs that offer brand-new Super Sample rewards,” Arrowhead revealed. “These outposts will be heavily fortified, and require players to coordinate and strategize in order to take them out.”
It looks like teamwork will be more important than ever in the new update which coincides nicely with the final reveal.
Helldivers 2’s Escalation of Freedom update finally addresses grief-kicking
Arrowhead recognizes that certain players have been using the function to kick players as a form of griefing. Of course, sometimes kicking a player is justified so devising a method of balancing a punishment mechanism has been a struggle.
The answer to that conundrum appears to be not punishing anyone but also, mitigating the sting of being kicked unfairly. Players will finally have their solution when the Escalation of Freedom update launches.
“We have implemented a system where if a player is kicked, they will spawn into a new session as the host with all of the team’s loot from their previous session. All items can now be picked up by the player before extraction,” Arrowhead revealed. “The squad doing the kicking will see a message in the chat widget that a player has been kicked, yet their loot remains unchanged.”
Arrowhead has also promised various quality-of-life updates to Helldivers 2. Particularly with the game’s social menu to make spreading democracy with your friends that much easier.
In the lead-up to the release of Helldivers 2’s Escalation of Freedom update, More information is sure to be revealed.
We’ll be sure to add anything important to this guide as the news becomes available.