From the desk of our Creative Director, Mikael Eriksson

Helldivers,

The Void has been pierced and the Illuminate's latest shenanigans have been decisively dealt with! Well done! 

The Devoid of Liberty launch has run its course and history has been written. Before we dive into whatever comes next, I wanted to take a moment and talk about how I personally think this update landed. 

What We Were Going For

I consider Devoid of Liberty to be a ‘vertical slice’ of what we want this game to be every week. Not in terms of new content (we can’t keep up with that), but in terms of fantasy cohesion. The Void’s presence transcended the game: it was felt outside of the SE Destroyer windows and the Galactic War map. It was in what you read in the mission descriptions, what you saw on the battlefield, what you heard in the war reporting, and what you created as a community. The throughline was strong across the game and the community. 

This is the future that we’re aiming for: a future where the Galactic War is this interesting and dynamic every day, and felt inside and out of the game. 

With the Void specifically, we wanted to dive deeper on Illuminate lore. We had already explored the Terminid Hive Worlds and the Automaton Cyborg Factories, so it felt like the logical next step to expand our universe. The Illuminate are all about mystery, exploring the unknown, and being confronted with technology and intentions you can't fully understand. With Heart of Democracy, we had already told the classic invasion story of "Aliens attacking innocent civilians!" This time we wanted to explore more about who they really are and how they work.

We wanted the Void to feel like stepping into an oppressive, alien environment that actively resented your presence. From the haunting environmental audio design to the unsettling visual distortion of the Void flora, every element was built to keep Helldivers on edge.

The new enemy variants earned their teeth. The twisted, razor-limbed human experiments proved once again the Illuminate’s blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life, something Super Earth could never relate to. We also expanded on the Illuminate Fleet system, and grouped all Illuminate enemies into different Fleets, which gives flavour but also adds to the believability and gives you more to consider when choosing loadouts. Going forward, this sort of thing is what we’re considering for all factions. We don’t want a one size fits all loadout for any Faction, you should always need to consider what you’re about to engage with. 

SEAF squadmates are the thing I'm most hyped about in this update. Fighting with a squad that follows commands, reacts to the fight (and occasionally hugs you mid-firefight, for reasons) is something Niklas Malmborg and I have talked about doing for a long time. It’s a war, after all! As we continue to expand the game, we want to both explore tighter, less crowded spaces as well as bigger, more chaotic battlefields, and this was a crucial step in that direction for us. We also wanted to give solo players and understaffed squads a genuine lifeline without breaking the four-Helldiver core experience.

The Warhammer 40,000 ‘Castellan's Creed’ Warbond brought new blood in without diluting the tone. As always, we chose our partners with great care. If done wrong, a crossover could feel like it's wearing Super Earth's uniform without buying into Managed Democracy, and that is something we won’t do. I think we threaded that needle and ended up with a Warbond that's genuinely great while staying true to the original IP, and I was very happy to see positive reactions from the Warhammer fans. You guys are known to be particular about details!

What We’re Still Working On

Launch stability was too patchy (pun intended). We had nasty crashes on fullscreen terminal interaction and issues for players using ultra-wide monitors. An update of this size needed a cleaner landing, and it took us two follow-up patches to get there.

These big beats should run for longer, and the endings should be more clearly shaped by the community. The two things we've heard most since the Devoid of Liberty launch: you wanted more time in the Void, and you wanted the community choices to shape the ending in impactful ways. Both of these are impacted by how we structured the campaigns: how many phases a Campaign runs, how long content stays live, and how much room our Game Masters have to react to the community in interesting ways. That's the part we're working on iterating on for the next big update.

Some quality-of-life asks are still sitting in the backlog. Assist-reloading and backpack icon clarity were great wins, but there's still a long list of smaller frictions behind them, and they're on the board.

Where We Go From Here

I'm happy with this update, and it was as fun as always to follow the developments live, but I know there's still room to improve. The Void isn't finished with us, and neither are we with it. Stability will stay the priority between updates, and the campaign structure work above is the one to watch for going forwards. 

Thank you for your devotion to diving and dying and diving again. Stay frosty, Helldivers.

For Super Earth. For Liberty.

To our Dedicated Citizens of Super Earth,

We’ve been following your feedback over the past few days and seeing the conversations across the Helldivers 2 community.

Helldivers 2 matters to all of us, and we want to be clearer about what we’re working on and what’s coming next.

Alongside new content, we’re focused on improving the core of the game - stability, progression, and the Galactic War.

Below, we’ve pulled together answers to some of the questions we’re seeing across Reddit, Discord, and X. We’ll keep sharing more as we go.

What is the team focusing on right now? What are their current priorities?

Right now, a major focus for the team is improving meta-progression and the Galactic War.

We’ve significantly expanded the team working in this area, reflecting how important these long-term systems are for the overall player experience.

The goal is to deliver deeper progression and a more engaging Galactic War, with features like:

• More meaningful rewards and community progression systems
• Evolving Major Orders into longer, multi-week themed “Campaigns”
• Branching outcomes that create clearer stakes and consequences based on player actions

You’ll start to see the first results of this work this summer. 

In multiple updates there have been hidden changes to weapons or enemies. Why were they not announced in patch notes? 

We want our patch notes to be as clear and complete as possible, to the level of detail that matters to our players.

In some cases, changes have not been communicated with the clarity we intend, and we are continuing to improve our internal process so patch notes more accurately reflect gameplay adjustments.

We are also working on how we explain balance updates more clearly, especially when a change can have effects across multiple weapons, enemies, and gameplay systems.

Will we get more frequent updates about the game?

Yes — improving how regularly and clearly we communicate is a priority for us.

We’re moving toward more consistent communication updates, with deeper conversations happening more often.

In the near term, the conversations will be focusing on the biggest issues we’re seeing from players, including:

• Tech and performance improvements
• The vision for game balance moving forward
• Player progression and the broader player experience within the Galactic War

Alongside this, we’ll be more transparent about community feedback - including what we’re seeing, what we’re prioritising, and what actions we’re taking. You’ll start to see this reflected more clearly in patch notes and other updates.

What quality of life upgrades and changes will we see for the Galactic War? Maybe variation in reward types, like when we used to get stratagems as rewards. Will we do more community-driven events with rewards like that?

Good news — updates to the Galactic War and its rewards are coming this summer.

We’ve seen the feedback around rewards, and we want them to feel more distinctive, more meaningful, and more worthy of the battles you’re fighting.

This includes adding greater variety to rewards and bringing back more of the excitement players have called out - including things like stratagem unlocks and more community-driven moments.

We also want the Galactic War itself to feel more reactive to player actions, with events and outcomes that carry more weight.

We will be sharing more details soon on how this connects to progression, balance, and the overall experience.

Will you ever have public beta testing? What is your beta testing process like now?

Yes - expanding how we test updates with players is a priority for us.

We’re exploring having more closed and public beta testing, with the goal of getting broader feedback, especially for balance changes, before they go live.

One of the challenges is finding the right balance between testing changes openly and not spoiling upcoming content or narrative elements tied to the Galactic War.

Today, we run closed playtests that cover both new content and balance changes, as well as wider internal studio playtests. Going forward, we’re looking at ways to separate these out so we can test balance more openly where it makes sense.

Overall, our goal is to expand the footprint of our testing programs and bring more of the community into that process over time.

Why did you put exosuits in the Exo Experts warbond? Does this mean we won’t get an exosuit for free ever again?

The goal with the Exo Experts Warbond was to create something that felt thematically strong and exciting, with exosuits as a core part of that fantasy.

That said, we’ve seen the feedback around how that landed - especially when it comes to expectations around how players unlock major gameplay items like exosuits.

More broadly, we want to strike the right balance between what’s included in Warbonds and what’s available through gameplay, so that rewards feel both exciting and fair.

And to be clear - yes, you will be getting other vehicles through gameplay in the future.

When will we get new red stratagems and ship modules?

We’ve got teams actively working on both new red stratagems, evolving ships, and player progression to level 150… and beyond!

Our goal is to expand these areas in ways that add meaningful new options and support different playstyles, rather than just adding more for the sake of it.

We’ll be sharing more details as these get closer to release.

Salutes to all our divers,

Arrowhead