Last week, Helldivers 2's simulated galactic war saw its first narrativized twist when the Automaton menace launched a surprise attack on the Xzar system. The event unlocked new planets and civilian extraction missions which proved so difficult that even experienced players couldn't complete them. This led many to assume the abnormal difficulty spike was either a bug or an intentional tipping of scales in the robots' favor by Arrowhead Games to challenge Super Earth's liberation streak.

Both scenarios are still on the table, but the latest Helldivers 2 patch, version 1.000.10, might bring relief: Arrowhead has “tuned” the difficulty of civilian extraction missions. Presumably that means they've been toned down, but I suppose we can't rule out that Arrowhead's turning up the heat even further. Version 1.000.10 comes only a few days after the release of 1.000.009, which reduced the difficulty of the “defend event.”

Today's patch also includes updates on Arrowhead's ongoing firefight against its own popularity, as matchmaking and login servers have buckled under the weight of hundreds of thousands of active players on PC and PlayStation. An issue that was breaking quickplay matchmaking on PC has been resolved, as well as a fix for black screens on startup and login error 10002038. 

While these issues associated with logging in are fixed, I wouldn't expect a sudden improvement in Helldivers 2's login queues. At 1 PM Pacific today, I still can't play without waiting in line for 15-20 minutes.  In an updated “known issues” list, Arrowhead says logins will still be slow as active players exceed server capacity (recently capped at 450,000) and disconnects remain common. 

If you're wondering why Helldivers 2's developers can't simply “add more servers” to address this issue, one game developer took to Twitter today to explain just how complicated and interdependent online games' infrastructure is.

Another notable bullet from this patch: armor attributes “do not currently function as intended,” so it might not be worth slowing yourself down in heavy armor at the moment. It is still worth considering armor perks when picking the best Helldivers 2 loadouts, weapons, and armor.

Patch 1.000.10 is out now on PC and PS5. Read the full patch notes below:

Fixes

• Fixed crash when replicating ragdoll momentum
• Fixed crash when replicating destructions
• Fixed crash when displaying the mission end rewards
• Resolved a 100% block issue for Quickplay matchmaking on PC
• Tuned extract civilian mission difficulty
• Improved the way that we handle platform authentication to avoid things like the black screen issue at startup
• Improvements to our client > backend communication for better backend performance
• Implemented an automatic retry mechanism to quickplay
• Added proper login error message for error “10002038”

Known issues

These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.

• Login rate limiting when many are logging in at the same time
• Players can become disconnected during play
• Rewards and other progress may be delayed or not attributed
• Various UI issues may appear when the game interacts with servers
• Pick-up of certain objects in-game may cause characters to freeze in place for an extended period of time
• Other unknown behaviors may occur
• Japanese VO is missing from intro cutscene and Ship TV
• Armor values for light/medium/heavy armor do not currently function as intended