Helldivers 2, as I discussed final month, has been a whole rollercoaster throughout its first yr of updates. Balance particularly has been a constant ache level. As in, these humorous little patches that make your weapons good or dangerous and begin flame wars: The railgun nerfs that launched a thousand ships. And 2025 is kicking off with one other one.
The newest on this lengthy line of steadiness discussions has been impressed by the latest Killzone crossover weapons, whose controversy noticed their latter half supplied totally free as penance. CCO Johan Pilestedt has now waded into the discourse to to dispense some Super Earthly knowledge: “Balance does not matter,” he reckons. Erm.
Alright, in equity, that is only one a part of a Reddit remark made by Pilestedt on the topic. One weapon particularly has been put within the crosshairs: The PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle. This weapon is in a little bit of a bizarre spot—it fires a burst of three pictures with a magazine of 9 rounds, as a sniper rifle, which means it chews by way of its ammo in a short time. Its injury additionally is not actually as much as snuff with its inefficiency. In truth, because the writer of the thread Pilestedt is replying to notes, it is outclassed by the PLAS-101 Purifier, a weapon we particularly referred to as out after the large steadiness patches again in November as a “bot-killing phenomenon”.
The Purifier is much like the PLAS-39 in that it is a charge-based weapon, however it additionally comes with significantly heftier injury, a extra environment friendly clip, and it has a semi-auto mode for once you do wish to spray and pray. It’s each deadlier and extra versatile than its Killzone crossover cousin, which might, let’s not neglect, have value 600 Super Credits earlier than Arrowhead gave it away totally free.
In response, Pilestedt argues: “Weapons are what weapons are, steadiness does not matter. This can be what was incorrect earlier than. Things had been seen as sport objects fairly than actual weapons. If you just like the [Killzone] fantasy, you could wish to use it. It kills issues, not ineffective. It might perhaps use some tweaking, however sadly a 3 burst sniper with 9 rounds per magazine… is not that nice. But that is how the weapon works.”
To be charitable, a lot of the neighborhood’s previous outrage has been at Arrowhead being anti-fun and too balance-focused with its quantity tweaking—in Pilestedt’s personal phrases, “each time somebody finds one thing enjoyable, the enjoyable is eliminated”. Besides, it is solely regular that, in a sport which releases a batch of weapons each Warbond (for a mixed tempo of round 12 new weapons each three to 5 months) you are gonna have a tough time holding issues on an excellent keel.
Helldivers 2 can be a co-op sport, not a PvP area—so issues like energy fantasy, normal really feel, and baseline effectiveness are going to matter far more than a obscure definition of equity. However, merely shrugging at an underdog gun and saying “that is how the weapon works” in Killzone appears baffling, contemplating Helldivers 2 owes its latest success to uplifting its underperforming weapons, greater than something. Sure, it’d defeat the train of including Killzone weapons in the event that they did not work like they do in that sport, however I really feel like that is a secondary concern in comparison with making it definitely worth the worth in Helldivers 2.
It could boil right down to verisimilitude (the sensation of ‘realness’) for Pilestedt, who provides: “I actually despise the trope that snipers in video games do extra injury than rifles of the identical caliber,” Pilestedt provides. “It’s so dumb.” This tracks with a later remark in a separate thread the place he laments the videogame logic of miniguns heating up the extra you utilize them, one thing the design of miniguns is actually constructed round avoiding. “Any designer that designs miniguns that means mustn’t work making shooters.”
At the identical time, it is a sport the place you are taking pictures aliens with plasma weapons and mowing down large bugs with flamethrowers, realism solely will get you thus far. Gag weapons just like the 2124 Constitution rifle are one factor, however it is a weapon that might’ve value precise premium foreign money as a part of a crossover occasion.
Disagreeing with how that sport dealt with its gun design does not observe as an excuse to make it wimpy once you’d deliberate to promote it for round $6 in premium foreign money—the one cause gamers aren’t demanding their Super Credits again in droves is as a result of Arrowhead modified its thoughts, and gave it away totally free. I’d say the studio dodged a bullet, right here, and it would be good to review why that shot was fired within the first place.
