The CEO of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios apologized to fans Friday after a seemingly small nerf caused an uproar throughout the community.
“I’ll own this screwup. I should have provided more context behind that stat instead of just dropping it on you,” CEO Shams Jorjani wrote in the game’s official Discord.
The problem stems from the large Escalation of Freedom update this week that, among other things, nerfed some of the fire-based weapons. Specifically, the Breaker Incendiary — a popular weapon for going up against terminid enemies — got more recoil and a smaller magazine. Flame effects were also adjusted to “work more realistically,” so weapons like the flamethrower wouldn’t output fire that would just go through enemies or objects, but would bounce off. This was all in preparation for the new premium Freedom’s Flame warbond, which would bring even more incendiary weapons to the game.
Arrowhead developers are constantly working on weapons balance to make unpopular weapons usable. Jorjani wrote in Discord that the Breaker Incendiary changes were because players used it in around “30% of all terminid sessions at some point … Is that a problem? Yes. Is it a big one? I don’t know. We’ll discuss it.” Jorjani’s most recent statement explained that “game balance is always a bit of whack-a-mole, and we know that when we get a lot of “I think the game is a good state” and healthy discussion for AND against the viability of stuff, we’re probably succeeding with the balance work.”
However, players thought this one went too far, claiming that it took out a lot of the “fun” from the game and was bad timing right before a fire-based warbond. Many players brought up a previous statement from game director Johan Pilestedt about some other unpopular balance changes. “I think we’ve gone too far in some areas,” Pilestedt wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Will talk to the team about the approach to balance. It feels like every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed.”
Players have also been criticizing Arrowhead for a comment Jorjani made about how many of the complaints came from a minority. One Redditor posted results from a Discord poll that showed most players were either unhappy with the update or didn’t have an opinion on it. Helldivers 2 on Steam has been review bombed due to the update and, at the time of this writing, is sitting at “Mixed” for recent reviews. There are even calls in the subreddit to boycott the game.
“I don’t think we did as well as we hoped this time around, and it’s disappointing after we had a similar misstep earlier this year. That’s a failure on me — not on the the designers doing the work itself,” Jorjani wrote.
In response, the developers introduced a Discord feedback form on Friday that players can fill out if they want to comment on current game issues.
