You don't often see people calling Helldivers 2 an easy game, but just in case you wanted the difficulty to be taken up a notch further, the hit shooter has now added random environmental hazards to some of its planets. So, we now have even more threats to contend with.
These planetary hazards were added as part of the major 01.000.100 patch that went live on PC earlier, which is on its way to the PS5 version soon, too. In the patch notes shared by developer Arrowhead Game Studios, they were described as "additional environmental challenges" that can randomly appear on "many planets" while you're deployed.
While a full list of hazards wasn't given, we've been warned that meteor showers, fire tornadoes, and "many more" threats can now strike at seemingly any given time, so be sure to watch out for those. It's rather ominous that there are a number of hazards that we aren't aware of right now, but the unknown should help keep the game even more interesting while we find out what they are.
This isn't the only change that's been made in an effort to make Helldivers 2 trickier. It turns out that Eradicate missions were actually taking about half the amount of time that they were supposed to, and as such, you'll now have significantly more enemies thrown at you in them going forward. Not only will foes spawn more often, but you'll need to kill more of them, too, so you can expect the missions to take twice as long as before.
As the first big balance patch, large changes have been made to some of the game's most powerful weapons, although Helldivers 2 game designer Alex K has noted that they know "having your favorite toy nerfed absolutely sucks." They advise that you don't compare the changed weapons to how they once were, and embrace the altered versions if you still enjoy them.
It's been confirmed that mechs are on the way to Helldivers 2 – be sure to check out our guide to everything we know about mechs so far.
Arrowhead reveals the Helldivers 2 ideas left on its cutting room floor, from 5-player squads to low-gravity planets and a whole new armor system
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