Helldivers 2 game director Mikael Eriksson has revealed more details about the decisions made by Arrowhead Game Studios when it comes to the progression systems in the co-op shooter. Responding to the question about “why it’s not progressing faster,” Eriksson discussed the two broad category of progression in Helldivers 2 – Community Progression and Player Progression. While the former revolves around things like contributions to the Galactic War effort, the latter focuses on a player’s personal journey.
When it comes to expanding on the endgame content offered by Helldivers 2, Eriksson noted that simply raising the level cap for players isn’t quite enough to address player feedback on a foundational level. Rather, decisions like that only start making sense once there are actually deeper progression systems that have been put in place. This way, future unlocks can feel more valuable for a variety of players, rather than just the players who have reached the absolute endgame after having unlocked everything.
When it comes to Community Progression, Eriksson acknowledged the fact that the team has found it difficult to communicate whether a player’s actions actually have any tangible effect on the Galactic War. To address this, June will see the launch of Galactic War Campaigns, which have been described as “the next evolution of Major Orders.” These campaigns will be between 1 and 3 weeks in length, and will give players a clearer idea of the current narrative, its progression, previous outcomes, and stakes for future conflicts.
Campaigns will also offer players more chances to earn rewards, since at least one Campaign reward will always be available as long as its conditions are met. “We want to make these rewards special, because we also think players should earn more than just medals,” explained Eriksson. To that end, Arrowhead Game Studios will be experimenting with different kinds of rewards, from gameplay-altering effects to cool items. To kick things off, the first Campaign will reward players with a new FRV on completion.
Eriksson has also revealed that Arrowhead Game Studios has been experimenting with a new style of missions, dubbed Planet Warfronts, which will make use of roguelite gameplay systems to give players more options when it comes to liberating planets. There will be three distinct types of missions in Planet Warfront – “Defend” missions in liberated territory, “Frontline War” missions on the frontlines, and “Behind Enemy Lines” missions in enemy-controlled territories. These missions will take place in key strategic locations on planets, like cities, and will feature different active enemy variants depending on the planet and its region. Planet Warfonts is still in development and doesn’t yet have a release date.
As for Player Progression, Eriksson acknowledged that Personal Orders may have started feeling too repetitive, and can often be in conflict with the goals of their immediate squad and the community as a whole. To address this, the studio is working on “Personal Campaign Progression”, where each Galactic War Campaign will feature its own personal progression reward track. Through this, even failing to reach the goals of a campaign will still mean that players get to unlock something.
Players’ Super Destroyers are also getting more customization options, and players will get even more upgrade options thanks to an overhaul of the ship module system. There will also be entirely new ships for players to unlock, and the studio has already set up a dedicated ship team to work on its first new ship. Each new ship will feature its own unique progression paths, specializations, and customization options.
Furthermore, the coming updates to Helldivers 2 will bring in a host of improvements, including the ability to use assisted reload as long as either the carrier or the reloader of the weapon have the right backpack, double the number of emote slots, and reduced dead inputs on stimming. In the longer term, the studio wants to address a host of other issues, like Stratagem bouncing, Hellpod steering, improving traversal for players and enemies, increasing the level cap to 300, improvements to economy and resources, fixes to Warbond and Superstore menus, and stability and balance improvements.
Helldivers 2 is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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