Like a moth to a flame, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt can't help but tease the future of Helldivers 2 whenever he logs on to Twitter.
Today, after penning a cryptic tweet about giving Super Earth citizens “more officially regulated and mandated freedom,” Pilestedt replied to one fan's concept for a tripod-equipped minigun with a curious insight into a different, unreleased Helldivers 2 gun.
“Gatling guns as support weapons are cool, but only if they accurately represent the insane recoil. We may, but it will require some real cool mechanics,” Pilestedt replied to one fan.
“You could add a deployable tripod that means to kill recoil, you kill your own ability to move, 3 second deploy time, 3 seconds to pack it up,” responded Twitter user FedNet23. “If you are in undeployed mode, recoil should be savage unless a 2nd player is helping you keep it stable holding a 2nd rail.”
“This was the idea for the HMG,” Pilestedt wrote back, before immediately tweeting: “Nevermind. There's no such thing as HMG.”
While Pilestedt doesn't clarify what “HMG” stands for, he's likely referring to a heavy machine gun that doesn't currently exist in Helldivers. Well, it doesn't exist anymore. This is not the first time such a weapon has come up—during the very first hours of Helldivers 2's launch in February, several players reported seeing a “MG101 Heavy Machine Gun” support weapon stratagem in the unlocks menu. A few hours later, it apparently disappeared, but not before they snapped a screenshot of its in-game description. According to that description, the HMG is “a very powerful but difficult-to-wield machine gun with intense recoil.” It would have unlocked at level 12, between the Autocannon and the Railgun.
We can only see the back of the HMG in the deleted in-game description, but its appearance lines up perfectly with another weird icon that's disappeared from the game in recent updates. For a few weeks in Helldivers 2, the regular machine gun was represented on the map with an icon that looked nothing like it. As captured by one Reddit user, the mismatched icon depicts a larger gun with a round top and a tripod. Sounds a lot like the concept Pilestedt shared.
MG-101 stratagem removed mere hours after launch? from r/Helldivers
So when will the HMG see the light of day? It's strange that the weapon was yanked from our clutches hours after the game went live. And I can't help but notice Pilestedt talked about the tripod concept in the past tense—has the HMG been scrapped altogether, or will it return in a different form?
I can see it going in a few interesting directions. If the “heavy” machine gun could pierce heavy armor, like that of a Charger or Hulk, that'd instantly make it the most powerful automatic gun in the game. It'd make sense if such a beefy gun was uncontrollable from the hip. Maybe fans are onto something with requiring a second helldiver to soften the recoil.
With Helldivers 2's galactic war in a lull after consecutive chaotic weeks, there's a lot of speculation about the future of the game going around. The continued leaking of unreleased APCs and buggies into public matches could suggest we'll get our first vehicles soon enough, but game master Joel probably won't be there to hand-deliver them.
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