Helldivers 2’s massive Illuminate invasion day patch, 01.003.000, brings a bunch of fresh weapon balancing as Arrowhead totally revamps gun accuracy and flamethrower damage

There’s nothing going on with Helldivers 2 today. It’s a quiet one. Well, aside from the whole fresh Illuminate invasion deployed alongside some new enemies and mechanics. If that wasn’t enough to digest, the full patch those additions are part of – 01.003.000 – has delivered a bunch of fresh weapon balancing.

Yep, shooty/burny implement rejigging, and it’s certainly got a chance to be as controversial as we’ve seen in the past, since Super Earth’s beloved flamethrowers are one of the weapons that the studio’s had a crack at switching up. That said, having read through the tweaks, I’d say most sound a lot more on the buff side than the nerf side.

You can find the full notes for patch 01.003.000 here, and Arrowhead’s put out a handy 22-minute long video that sees HD2 design director Niklas Malmborg and currently on sabbatical chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt go through reasoning behind each big change.

This time around, the weapon balancing has had two main focuses – revamping the factors which dictate how accurate you can be when firing different regular guns, and re-doing how the fire damage dished out by flamethrowers works when it comes to larger enemies.

With the addition of weapon customisation, Malmborg and Pilestedt explained that the devs have opted to generally move away from most guns aside from shotguns have much spread, with “sway” based on factors like your movement, stance, and the ergonomic requirements of the specific weapon you’re using becoming a bit more prominent.

“This gives the players more opportunity to work with their aim,” Malmborg explained, with Pilestedt adding: “Previously, the way that weapons have worked in Helldivers [2] is that we had an exaggerated inaccuracy. So, basically the inaccuracy of a bullet leaving the barrel. Now, we move that more into a realistic scenario, [a] realistic space where assault rifles are as accurate as they are in real life.”

So, the likes of SMGs and sidearms will have less spread, and there’ll be more sway, especially with sidearms that don’t boast a stock to help keep them level. Arrowhead’s also added more drag to pistol ammo in order to make it less accurate at long range, lessened the stamina costs of melee weapons to make them more viable (hello, recently added sabre), and rejigged how shrapnel spawning works. “Shrapnel will now always spawn in a full 360-degree spread, regardless of where the explosion occurs,” it wrote of that last tweak, which affects frag grenades, autocannon flak, and the long-suffering Eruptor.

Meanwhile, flamethrower/burn damage has been changed so that it scales “with the surface area of the enemy”. “Now, the larger the enemy, the more damage they take while burning,” Arrowhead wrote, “However, bigger enemies will also be slightly more resistant to ignition. Additionally, direct fire damage now scales with enemy size—so large enemies like Chargers will still take roughly the same damage as before, while smaller enemies will take slightly less.”

Amusingly, Malmborg noted that this had previously been something the studio struggled to address because simply increasing burn damage across the board did help kill big foes with beefy health bars quicker, but also resulted in comparatively puny players dying instantly if they ended up on fire. Mag sizes for the Torcher and Flamethrower have also been increased because, in Arrowhead’s words: “putting stuff on fire is fun!”

What do you think of these weapon tweaks? Do you think they’ll help you fend off the fresh Illuminate threat? Let us know below!.