Helldivers 2 is the return of the flamethrower to its former glory. Each day, we will release a preview of its buff-filled update for September.

Helldivers 2 is experiencing some turbulence ever since its release. There have been community dramas, review bombs and the CEO stepping down as CCO in order to better respond player feedback. In-game protests are also common. Finally, a 60-day plan of updates was promised to help it out of its current bind.

Helldivers 2's balancing philosophy has been the subject of many complaints and passionate arguments. To summarise: Helldivers 2 is not perfect. Johan Pilestedt has highlighted the issue of time-to-kill, but it is still high. Some popular weapons have been nerfed despite this. The flamethrower was nerfed to limit its usability as well as its visual effects.

Pyromaniacs will be able to rejoice, however, because the studio has chosen to release its promised buffs in pieces, starting with the plan to restore the flamethrower back to its former position of glory.

"A buff a week keeps the bugs at bay... We have heard you loudly and clearly and Flamethrower Damage [will be] Increased by 33%," writes Studio on Twitter. The studio shared a video of CCO Johan Pilestedt (below) and design director Niklas malmborg briefly explaining the changes.

Pilestedt says: "We've made some major adjustments to the flame weapons." Malmborg adds: "Yeah. We just went back. There was some stuff to be looked at, but it was right." Pilestedt says that in addition to the 33% damage increase, the flamethrower also has a "armour penetrating increase", allowing users to finally scream "get some" while hosing a charger down with fiery freedom, as democracy intended.

These informational videos will trickle in daily. This means that players can expect a constant drip feed of balance promises, which so far seem to be fulfilling their desires. We know, for example, that Armour Penetration will be getting a major overhaul and that Arrowhead will be conducting closed beta testing to ensure that its tweaks won't be unpopular.

All of this sounds like a step in the right directions for a game which has been unfairly and fairly beaten since its release. I agree that a horde-shooter shouldn't have a lot of enemies who are walking fortresses. However, some decisions, such as making the Chargers' big, glowing bum a weak point, are confusing. It's just a videogame. You're supposed to shoot the shiny, red thing. It's not rocket science.

It's another question whether it will be enough to bring us back to the Halcyon Days of Helldivers 2's launch. While I've argued that a game's popularity can't be measured by a drop from 400,000+ goldrush to a steady 50,000 concurrents, a look at SteamDB's numbers shows a downward trend to a modest 16,000 24-hour peak in the last few months.

It's important to note that the game is not dead. People move on and that is normal and correct. It's evident that updates like The Escalation of Freedom aren't the second wind Arrowhead Games hoped for. I'm still waiting for the Illuminate, but after all the intergalactic democratising that I did when I released Helldivers 2, I'm hoping for a Helldivers 2 update. We'll see what they've been up to in the kitchen. The rebalancing is scheduled for release on September 17.