The 60-day Helldivers 2 patch plan culminated in the canonization of John Helldiver. Less important, there have been major buffs for grenades and sentries as well as the long avoided anti tank mines.

Helldivers 2's 60-day plan is now complete. Well, it's actually a 63-day, but who keeps score? It's not my fault, it's just part of my job. If you haven't fought for freedom in a long time, here's a little context:

This game has a somewhat controversial patching history. It's mainly due to the general impression that Arrowhead is acting as the fun police. They nerf weapons whenever they are used too much.

The ship has already been completely redesigned, with the latest major patch adding a ton more buffs, but at the cost of making it a lot easier. I'm okay with that, as I believe horde-shooters should let you, ya know, shoot hordes. But offering a well-balanced, harder difficulty that adheres to this philosophy will be Arrowhead's next major task.

You can read the patch notes for yourself, but Arrowhead has also published a blog post describing its philosophy, thanks to Mikael Ericsson.

Your feedback on the Escalation Of Freedom update was both insightful as well as vital to our improvement. Eriksson explains that "we listened, learned, and took action" before laying out the broad strokes.

• Over 70 weapons and stratagems have been balanced, with the armour penetration reworked and enemy health and armour values adjusted.
• Several enemies were reworked so that they would be a challenge to defeat, but also rewarding. Some notable changes include reducing the armour value of heavy enemies such as Hulks and Chargers.
• We dived deep into core systems such as enemy spawning, targeting and vision for Automatons.

What about the specifics? First, the Helldivers' armor has also been given some general tweaks. Heavy Armour and Light Armour have 5% greater damage reduction, and take 8% fewer damage respectively. This means that Light Armour is less threatening, while Heavy Armour is more appealing.

Weapons like the PLAS-1 Scorcher have seen some unilateral improvements. It now has a faster fire rate and a larger magazine. The Liberator weapons line has been given some love, along with the BR-14 Adjudicator. The real excitement here is the addition of throwables.

The damage of High Explosive grenades, Frag grenades, and Incendiary Grenades has been doubled. This seems to be a way to bring them up to par with the tank-melting Thermite grenade. This buff is further proof that Arrowhead has ditched its "nerf first approach" to balance.

As a result of their programmable ammunition, both the Autocannon as well as Recoilless Rifle now have new uses. The Autocannon has flak projectiles, now, which explode based on proximity--basically, if you're in a very crowd-rich environment and want to avoid blowing yourself up, you can turn the flak off. The Recoilless Rifle, meanwhile, has received a high yield explosive ammo that hits a larger area in exchange for armour-penetrating properties.

Other stratagems also received buffs. Jump packs will yeet your further, Drone packs are now recalled for cowards, and cooldown reductions have been applied to all sentries. Anti-Tank Mines are now a thing of the past. They are only triggered by heavy enemies and their damage has increased from 800 to 2000. Their explosion radius is slightly smaller, but now they do what they promise.

There have also been some major gameplay changes. Prior to this, after completing a mission, the number of patrols that spawned increased almost everywhere. This increased spawning rate is now limited to the extraction points: "This should make patrol spawning more logical and less penalizing for players who finish the mission but want to explore or collect samples," Arrowhead writes.

Automatons also received a swathe nerfs. They should no longer track you on solid terrain, which is nice, but the studio has also fully canonised the meme John Helldiver via a nerf for Hulk-Bruisers.

"Super Earth High Command sent a crack Commando to sabotage the production facilities of the Automaton Hulk Bruisers in response to their disapproval over a newly-installed cannon. After completing the mission, the skilled operative slipped into shadows. They are still wanted by Automatons and survive today as a soldier for fortune. If you need help, if nobody else can, and if they are located, you might be able to enlist... John Helldiver."

The Automaton's armor has also been reduced in general, and the way tanks are damaged is slightly different. "The rear weak points of the Tank body now have their very own health pool that matches the Tanks previous total health. Once this health pool has been depleted, then the tank will be destroyed. These weak spots also deal an additional 150% damage to the Tank’s main health."

This change, as far as I can tell means that the rear weak spots will be more vulnerable. However, they will alsocontribute towards the main tank HP if you strike them. If you've already damaged a tank, but not killed it yet, spitting at the weak spot will finish the job.

There have also been some bug fixes and crash fixes. I'll list them below, along with a list Arrowhead is still working on. Overall, I think this is a good thing. I'm happy to see Arrowhead delivering on its promises.

Known Issues

These issues are either new ones introduced by the patch, and are currently being fixed, or they are old problems from an earlier version that have not been fixed yet.

Top priority:

• The hive-breaker drill may not be accessible when called in
• Players cannot receive friend requests sent from another platform
• Terminals can lose functionality, preventing completion of a mission
• Some players' social menu is stuck at 'Please wait democratically'
• Title may crash while intro cinematic or title screens
• Friends "Invite-only" games can be seen on the Galactic War Map, but cannot be joined

Medium Priority:

• Players cannot shoot correctly while in the air with a jetpack
• Stratagem Balls bounce unpredictably from cliffs and certain spots
• Some Eagle Stratagems might not drop on a swamp world
• Players who join a game that is in progress may not receive reinforcement
• Pelican-1 can sometimes be launched if struck with an impaler tentacle
• If you press down on the controller while calling a stratagem, you may be using it incorrectly.
• High-damage weapons will not detonate Hellbombs that are already present on the map
• Some enemies who bleed out don't progress Personal Orders or Eradicate missions
• The QWERTY keyboard numpad binds do not save correctly when the Title restart