As promised, Helldivers 2 has finally called in pest control to take care of its tank infestation. That's via a patch that dropped this morning—which should prompt a great sigh of relief from the community.

In case you aren't acquainted with the game's creature culture, let me shed some light. At higher difficulties, Helldivers 2 has this nasty habit of spawning heavily-armoured creeps on top of you. Bile titans, chargers, hulks, annihilator tanks, the works. Because of the way armour functions, if you don't have the right equipment to deal with these guys, your only winning move is to run with your democratic tail tucked between your legs.

This was manageable initially because of the Railgun—an anti-tank gun so good it warranted a nerf. The only problem? There wasn't really anything to replace it. Its contemporaries (like the Recoilless Rifle) were all too slow to thin the herd, leading to plenty of screenshots with five-to-seven bile titans engaging in an impromptu vomit flash-mob. Mechs have been added to the game, however while they are rad as hell, their supplies of tank-busting rockets are severely limited. Budget cuts, what can you do?

This latest patch seeks to address that. “We have reduced the spawn rate of Chargers and Bile Titans on difficulties seven and up,” the patch notes read. “In addition we have reduced the risk of spawn spikes of Chargers and Bile Titans … Please note that we have changed the distribution of enemy types, not reduced difficulty. Expect other enemy types to appear in greater numbers instead.”

The notes also address the “leg meta”. For most of the game's lifespan, taking out chargers involved blowing off their leg armour with an anti-tank weapon, then shredding the exposed flesh with normal bullets. The patch reads: “spending your heavy anti tank weapons on legs instead of the obvious weak point seems counter to expectation.”

You can still bust some kneecaps if you'd like, but the charger's head health should be lower: “It should now be at a point where a well placed shot from a Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17 [Expendable Anti-Tank] instantly kills a charger.”

It seems like Arrowhead wants the Recoilless Rifle and the EAT-17 to fill the niche of tank-busters—which does make a certain kind of sense. Plus, with the reduction in spawn rates, we might even see these unwieldy weapons keeping pace with those terrifying Terminid titans. You can read the full list of patch notes below:

Patch 1.000.102

Good day citizens of Super Earth. A new patch to aid you in your efforts is coming in. May Super Earth give you courage

Overview

Today's patch is dealing with the spawn rate of heavily armored Terminid enemies as well as the possible play against them. It also contains some fixes to UI elements and crash fixes.

Balancing

Enemies:

• The amount of heavily armored targets that spawn on higher difficulties, especially for Terminids, have been a big discussion point online and internally. The intent is for groups to have to bring some form of anti-tank capability but not to the degree previously needed.
• To that end we have reduced the spawn rate of Chargers and Bile Titans on difficulties 7 and up. In addition we have reduced the risk of spawn spikes of Chargers and Bile Titans.
• Please note that we have changed the distribution of enemy types, not reduced difficulty. Expect other enemy types to appear in greater numbers instead.
• We are humbled by the community’s ability to find things like Chargers “leg meta” in our game, however spending your heavy anti tank weapons on legs instead of the obvious weak point seems counter to expectation.
• We are not changing anything regarding the Charger’s legs, we are however lowering the health of the Charger’s head. It should now be at a point where a well placed shot from a Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17 instantly kills a charger.
• Together with the unfortunately undocumented change of last patch that increased the armor penetration ability of less well placed shots for EAT-17s and Recoilless Rifle shots, Chargers should now be easier to handle by well equipped groups.

Gameplay

• “Electronic Countermeasures” operation modifier, which had a chance of giving you a random stratagem instead of the one you input, has been removed in order to be reworked, and will be reintroduced in a future iteration. We found that this modifier wasn’t communicated clearly enough and overall caused more frustration than excitement with the way it was currently implemented. This change was made in 1.000.100 but was unintentionally omitted from the patch notes.

Fixes

• Fixed missing text on several HUD / UI elements.
• Fixed several subtitle / VO mismatches in the news videos.
• Fixed various crashes that occurred mid-gameplay and when deploying to missions.

Known Issues

• Game crashes when attempting to use a stim while inside an Exosuit.
• Pink artifacts may appear in the sky when setting off large explosions.
• Automaton Dropship seemingly disappears and slides in after being shot down.
• Shots from arc-based weapons may not count towards kills in post-mission stats.
• Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
• Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the friend requests tab.
• Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.
• The Exosuit can destroy itself with rockets if it fires while turning.
• Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.

Release Captain Carlberg, out.