Helldivers 2 can be challenging, and after a recent balance patch which made some players unhappy one dev had a simple message: “skill issue”.

A lot of sci-fi first person shooters tend to have the player as some powerful juggernaut super soldier, the Halo franchise’s Master Chief comes to mind with regenerating shields, powerful weapons, and plentiful ammo. In Helldivers 2, players are expendable soldiers in service to an authoritarian regime. They’re definitively not soldiers, they’re cannon fodder.

As such, Helldivers 2 encourages team work and strategy, bringing the right tool for the job, making tactical decisions on when and how to engage enemies, not just mindlessly blasting enemies. So when a recent balance patch hit earlier this week that shook up the meta to bring things more in-line with what Arrowhead envisioned, players were unhappy that their solved meta was seemingly being taken away.

In a Reddit response to complaints, the Senior Animator at Arrowhead pointed out that players were still completing max difficulty missions and the issue may be more personal: “People are still clearing Helldive, so I’m not sure what to say here. But “skill issue” comes to mind”.

However the CEO of Arrowhead eventually had to step in to soothe the offended players, saying about another instance of developer trolling: “this is inexcusable behavior and we are providing education on how not behave this way when representing the studio”.

What do you think? In a game where the difficulty is part of the appeal, is this just harmless banter? Or serious unprofessionalism?