Helldivers 2's Escalation of Freedom update adds a new difficulty level, enemies, and a swamp world

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Helldivers 2's Escalation of Freedom update is finally here, bringing new features and improvements.

Escalation of Freedom, or Version 1.001.002, is the biggest update yet for the popular multiplayer shooter and brings with it a ton of new content. Some of the main highlights of the patch notes include a brand new difficulty Level 10 called Super Helldive, which Arrowhead Game Studios describes as "a new, extreme difficulty level designed for the most experienced and skilled Helldivers, featuring formidable new enemies and intense challenges."

With the Super Helldive level, new Terminid strongholds and Automaton fortresses will be available that will offer bigger challenges for better rewards. The update also introduces two new, secondary mission objects that will have players assaulting Automaton human processing plants to destroy their evil Bio-Processor, as well as venturing into Terminid territory to extract a living larva sample.

Alongside the return of The Impaler, new enemies have joined the fight, including the Rocket Tank, fitted with heavy armor and "devastating firepower", the Reinforced Scout Strider, which now boasts two rockets on each side for greater firepower, and the Spore Charger that will attack through acidic fog, accompanied by an Alpha Commander.

Helldivers can also get ready to deploy to a brand new swamp planet and also encounter new environmental hazards, namely Acid Storms.

The latest update also comes with plenty of quality-of-life improvements in the form of balance fixes for numerous weapons, as well as some gameplay tweaks. For instance, the operation modifier Atmospheric Interference has now been removed, corrosive acid planets no longer have the 'Intense Heat' environment modifier, and Gunship Engines are now less durable.

You can check out the full list of changes and bug fixes in the patch notes below.

Helldivers 2: Escalation of Freedom - Version 1.001.002 - patch notes:

Major Updates

Difficulty Level 10: Super Helldive - A new, extreme difficulty level designed for the most experienced and skilled Helldivers, featuring formidable new enemies and intense challenges.
New mission objectives - Two new, faction specific secondary objectives
Bigger enemy outposts
New Bugs and Bots
New swamp planet
New environmental hazards: Acid Storms - Temporarily lowers armor for enemies and the player. Make use of this but stay on high alert Helldivers.

Balancing

SG-8S Slugger

Increased stagger force
Increased spread
Increased drag

SG-225IE Breaker Incendiary

Decreased number of magazines from 6 to 4
Increased recoil from 28 to 41

GP-31 Grenade Pistol

Decreased ammo capacity from 8 to 6
Increased the number of rounds replenished from an ammo box from 2 to 4

CB-9 Exploding Crossbow

Is now one-handed

AX/AR-23 Guard Dog

Increased number of magazines from 6 to 8

Orbital Walking Barrage

Increased number of salvos 3 to 5
Decreased movement speed by 40%

Orbital 120mm HE Barrage

Decreased cooldown from 240s to 180s
Reduced time between salvoes

Gameplay

The operation modifier Atmospheric Interference has been removed,
Additionally for the automatons we added the modifier "Poor Intel" which makes objectives on the map to get a search radius just like most Eliminate objectives already has.
Corrosive acid planets no longer have the Intense Heat environment modifier.
Gunship Patrols are now less frequent and the amount of ships are reduced.
Gunship Engines are less durable now.
Improved armory weapon preview controls.
Updated orders UI.
Energy shields such as the Shield Generator Pack and Shield Generator Relay now block snowstorms as well as sandstorms.
A new grief protection system has been added that allows kicked players to continue in their own mission. This allows players to complete the mission and get full rewards despite being kicked.

Fixes

Crash Fixes

Decreased the chance of crashing when pressing alt+tab while using exclusive fullscreen window mode. (Windows)
Fixed rare crash which could occur while browsing Warbonds.
Fixed rare crash which could occur when switching tabs in the loadout.
Fixed rare crash which could occur when inviting PSN friends to a session. (PS5)
Fixed rare crash which could occur when selecting a booster in the loadout.
Fixed crash which could occur when browsing the acquisition center menus and alt-tabbing. (Windows)
Fixed rare crash which could occur in the loadout after joining a game.
Fixed crash which could occur when ragdolling into barbed wire.
Fixed crash which could occur when joining a mission with active vehicle skins from disconnected players.
Fixed crash which could occur when peers with unique skins would get kicked or disconnected.

Weapon & Stratagem Fixes

FS-55 Devastator armor

Fixed incorrect description.

ARC-12 Blitzer

You can now hold the fire button to shoot continuously.

ARC-12 Blitzer, Plasma Punisher

Added missing armor penetration tags.

GP-31 Grenade Pistol, LAS-7 Dagger, SG-22 Bushwacker

Moved into a Special sidearm category.

LAS-16 SIckle

Fixed incorrect fire limit value in the weapon stats.

SH-20 Ballistic Shield Backpack

No longer blocks the enemies line of sight.
No longer collides with the combat walker.
Fixed a bug where picking up an SSSD drive would cause ballistic shields to be dropped.
Fixed ballistic shield to not collide with player as long as wielded.

AX/AR-23 Guard Dog

Can now be refilled from ammo boxes found on the map

Misc weapon fixes

Fixed a bug where weapons would be held sideways after interrupting a stratagem with a stim heal.
Fixed arc weapons not shooting out any bolts when line of sight to enemy is blocked by an obstacle. Bolts will now fire but they will hit the obstacle. The misfires did not give the player sufficient feedback. We hope this makes the weapon operation clearer.
Fixed arc weapons misfiring when shooting enemies quickly that are aligned horizontally.
Added in missing haptics when firing the AR-61 Tenderizer.

Social Menu fixes

General improvements to the social menu systems.
Resolved some issues related to inconsistent social menu options.
Fixed issues regarding squad menu block button.
Fixed Various UI issues in the social menu.
The “Block menu” now more accurately shows blocked players.
Improvements to recent players tab.
Improved reliability of social menu options.
Resolved issues related to friend code generation.
Reduced occurrences of ‘please wait democratically’.
Players should find it easier to join one anothers games.
Players should find it easier to send/accept/decline friend requests.
Improved UX for ‘dangerous’ actions (kick/block/unfriend).

Miscellaneous fixes

Fixed a game soft lock where the extraction shuttle would sink into the ground preventing players from extracting.
Fixed being able to click hidden items (ie- items that have scrolled out of view) in the settings and bindings menus.
Game no longer hangs on quit after changing the crossplay setting.
Fixed hellpods not destroying trees in the swamp biome.
Weapons supporting auto reload retries could reload twice if interrupted in the final stage and firing occurred before resuming. Auto reload retries can now be canceled by pressing reload.
Resolved an issue where transitions into jog and sprint animations would be delayed if spammed.
Reduced the intensity of the Experimental Infusion booster visual effect.
Fixed missing description from Experimental Infusion booster
Fix Helldivers's prone rotation being reset after dodging while aiming.
Fixed stamina bar not respecting the stamina visibility HUD setting.
Fixed section number of owned stratagems not updating on purchase.
Fixed Hologram map preview not showing extraction point.
Improved performance of terrain destruction.
Fix stuck helldivers in cryo chambers after cutscene interruptions triggered by the host.
Improvements to the physics of the Ballistic Shield Stratagem as well as some bugs related to physics.
Fixed effects tab top title not showing correctly in Portuguese.
Fixed discarding when changing settings menu after changing resolution, render scale or screen device without applying.
Fixed special characters not showing in player names when picking up items.
Fixed the issue where players couldn't press ESC to discard resolution changes on the popup.
Fixed naming of Shrieker nests as Bug holes when pinging.
Hive Breaker Drill now does damage when dropped in Nuke Nursery Chamber missions.
Fixed weapon aim modes (both global and per weapon) not being remembered between closing and re-opening the game.
Fixed progress bar not showing for Raise the flag objective.
Adjusted flame effects to work more realistically.
It doesn't go through various bodies/objects where bounce off would be the expected behavior, like on armors and static objects.
Fixed issue where minimap would allow interactions during ion storms.
Changing text language in-game will no longer cause terminals to appear blank.
Fixed a bug where equipping a skin from the Warbond's purchase confirmation menu would reset the player's armor selection.
Hellpod skins are now visible on ships; initial hellpod drops from host ships will share the host's skin selection, while subsequent reinforcements will use individual skin selections.
Samples are transferred to the shuttle when boarding, dying inside the shuttle won't drop samples.
Reverting to default settings on a tab will no longer overwrite settings in other tabs.
The minimap now closes, if open, when exiting an Exo-Suit.
Loadout menu call-in times now include transportation time, aligning with in-game values.
Hellbomb stratagem will now be visible on the HUD when you are near an objective where it can be called down.
Applied fix to avoid that multiple stratagems - SOS beacon, sentries, resupply pod - would deploy inside of the Escape Pod.
Added graphics settings preset for Steam Deck.
Helldivers may now use stims while at full health for their other democratic effects.
“Kill x amount of enemies by guard dogs" personal orders can now be completed.
The latest warbond released will now appear at the top of the warbonds list.
Fix "[0/0]" being displayed in assassinate missions.
Fixed bug causing equipment previews to load indefinitely.
Fixed teammates picking up an item not showing the name in their color.
Fixed text chat cursor not working.
Implemented a more informative Quickplay toggle button.
Fixed effects tab sometimes showing scrambled.
Fixed mines being invisible for hot-joining players.
Additionally, fixed a bug causing recently deployed mines to become invisible.
Mines will no longer detonate if they are shot through a Shield Generator Relay bubble from the exterior or situated behind a solid obstacle and shot at.
Display hit markers for all weapons.
Fixed mute icon not showing when player muted.
Fixed bug when using a stim which canceled other players' sprint.
Fixed stimming animation while holding an Expendable AT.
Gone in 360 seconds trophy now awarded on difficulties greater than or equal to 6 rather than only on difficulty 6.
If a hellbomb is destroyed while it's armed and the timer is active it will explode.
Fixed issue where the player can throw an unlimited amount of grenades/throwing knives after diving off of a ledge while holding and then throwing the last throwable.
Fixed another issue where the player would hold an invisible grenade/throwing knife if they still had any left after hitting the ground in the same way.
Added TOGGLE MICROPHONE option to toggle the microphone activity for voice chat.
Sentries now won't try and attack certain buildings, and bullet sentries don't waste ammo on dropships.
Fixed HUD Info feed visibility setting not working correctly.
Fixed HUD Stratagem Visibility setting showing stratagems UI when set to hidden and opening the map.
Fixed UI sometimes showing the wrong amount of bug holes destroyed.
Patriot Exosuit missiles no longer self inflict damage.
Fix explosions not working from far distances against armored enemies.
Fixed issue when not being able to text chat when in loadout and the rest of the team is on the mission.
Fixed issues with Mission Control Radio voiceover not triggering.
Fixed a bug where changing VO language could take a very long time (sometimes forever) to apply.
Fixed issue that was leading the account linking menu to close automatically if it's being accessed through the in-game settings and the user's account was already linked.
Defend event progress now properly shown in mission end sequence.
Fixed effects tab sometimes showing scrambled text.