PlayStation Australia and Arrowhead Game Studios are excited to share Helldivers 2’s biggest update yet – Escalation of Freedom. Content will drop for all citizens of Super Earth on August 6th.

Information on the big update is detailed in the PlayStation Blog post below, written by Katherine Baskin, Social Media and Community Manager at Arrowhead Game Studios.

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Welcome to the Escalation of Freedom, Helldivers. Arrowhead Game Studios has taken the time to gather feedback from players on the front lines, and is bringing a greater variety to content. From missions and objectives to enemies and planets, the team is delivering lots of new content for both veteran players and brand-new Helldivers on the battlefield. Get ready for the biggest update yet!

The community continues to show how strong they are when united against the mindless Automatons and the scourge of the Terminid. On the eve of the Escalation of Freedom, reflecting on the 6 months since launch, we could never have predicted how far this game would go and how many Citizens would answer Super Earth’s call to arms!

It’s watched players expertly handle every conflict and challenge thrown their way, from flying enemies to the Terminid Control System, to saving the children of Super Citizen Anne’s Hospital. Now for this major update it’s time to give back something big to the community and welcome in even more players to the Helldivers universe.

Helldivers, this is escalating quickly.

Go on a Super Helldive

Go up against the new supersized bot fortresses

Something that continues to amaze is players’ insatiable desire for more bugs, more bots, more liberation, and more destruction. The team thought nine levels of Helldiving difficulties would be enough, but in the Escalation of Freedom, it’s time to turn it up to 10…Combat Rating 10 that is.

CR 10: Super Helldive is Helldivers 2’s, most relentless dive difficulty level yet, and it’s hoped that this is going to give players the intensity they’re looking for on the battlefield. With a great challenge comes great rewards.

The larva retrieval mission has the Helldivers babysitting a bug 

But a new difficulty level isn’t the only thing the community wanted. There was also a desire for mission variation, which is why the team is bringing players new mission objectives and bigger enemy outposts for both bots and bugs that offer brand new Super Sample rewards. These outposts will be heavily fortified and require players to coordinate and strategise in order to take them out.

If you’re new to Helldivers 2, you don’t have to worry about missing out on all the fun until you unlock Super Helldive because many of the new mission objectives will be playable on other difficulty levels.

New Enemies & Dangerous Swamps

The Impaler returns!

Escalation of Freedom is unleashing some new threats to players liberty that will take some serious strategising from the Helldivers to take down.

Back by popular demand: the Impaler! This big guy from the original Helldivers creates some new challenges. No longer can players run from the bugs when the Impaler is around-big, imposing, destructive, it demands to be dealt with.

Also new among the Terminid ranks is the Spore Charger. As if the regular old Charger wasn’t scary enough, the Spore Charger is shrouded in fog to obscure its location until it’s right up on you, Helldiver.

The new Spore Charger in the fog. 

Lastly, the Terminid Alpha Commander, which is a supercharged Brood Commander that’s bigger, meaner and doesn’t hesitate to call in other bugs for backup.

You thought the regular Brood Commander was bad? Think again.

Don’t think the Automatons were forgotten. Their ranks are growing, too, within the addition of the formidable Rocket Tank, as well as some other bot surprises.

The Atomaton uprising continues.

Explore the swamps, but not as they’ve been known, with rolling fog and the untamed flora, the blackened trees obscure the light and the air itself feels haunted. Keep the flashlight handy, as visibility is limited and light is key. The enemy could be hiding anywhere amongst the undergrowth.

Get spooked, Helldivers. 

Under the Hood

The last addition to highlight about the Escalation of Freedom update is that changes are being made to mitigate the problem of grief kicking in Helldivers 2. While it’s our hope that players engage with the game in good faith and sportsmanship, it’s noted that some players are using the team kicking to grief others.

To help improve this the team have implemented a system where if a player is kicked, they will spawn into a new session as the host with all of the team’s loot from the previous session. All items can now be picked up by the player before extraction. The squad doing the kicking will see a message in the chat widget that a player has been kicked, yet their loot remains unchanged.

With these changes, all players have the opportunity to leave with all loot collected on mission, with no one Helldiver losing out. We’re committed to making changes that will improve the player experience and encourage healthy, cooperative gameplay.

Along with this, the team is also releasing other quality of life upgrades with Escalation of Freedom, including major fixes to the social menu to make diving with friends easier.

Overall, this escalation is going to be packed full of awesome additions, long-awaited improvements, and a ton of surprises to discover! Helldivers 2: Escalation of Freedom is launching on August 6!

Learn more about the Escalation of Freedom at the PlayStation Blog.