Helldivers 2 director responds to fan complaints by saying the latest update ‘didn’t hit our target’

One of Helldivers 2’s game directors has acknowledged fan criticism of the game’s latest update.

The Escalation of Freedom update was released on August 6, but numerous players took to social media and forums to complain about it.

The most notable issue players have been reporting is that a wide number of weapons in the game have reportedly been ‘nerfed’, making them less powerful.

Now, in a message posted to the game’s Reddit page, game director Mikael Eriksson has acknowledged the complaints and taken responsibility for them, saying the studio failed to achieve what it wanted to with the update.

“We’ve spent the last week listening to feedback, reflecting about the path ahead for Helldivers 2 and how we want to continue developing the game,” Eriksson wrote.

“In short, we didn’t hit our target with the latest update. Some things we just didn’t get right – and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game direction.

“All of that is on us and we are going to own that. As many of you have pointed out, and we agree, what matters most now is action. Not talk.”

Eriksson said the studio will release further updates over the next 60 days with the following aims:

• Continue to “re-examine our approach to balance”
• Update how the fire damage mecahnic works “to tweak how the flamethrower serves as a close range support”
• Tweak gameplay “to prevent excessive ragdolling”
• “Re-think our design approach to primary weapons” to make combat more engaging
• “Re-prioritize bug fixes” so the more immediate bugs that most affect gameplay are resolved first
• Improve game performance, most notably frame rate
• “Rework chargers”

The studio is also looking into the creation of an opt-in beta environment that players can use to test changes before they’re rolled out to everyone, and also promises to make future patch notes clearer with more context and reasoning behind gameplay changes.

Sony said in May that Helldivers 2 had become PlayStation’s fastest-selling game launch ever, with sales “far exceeding expectations” at 12 million copies sold across PC and PS5 in its first 12 weeks.

That saw the live service game beat the 11 million copies sold in 10 weeks achieved by God of War Ragnarök last year, according to the platform holder.