Helldivers 2’s new update, the Escalation of Freedom, is under heavy scrutiny by players due to perceived weakening of certain weapons.

Popular players like Reddit’s Gn0meKr have blasted the incompetence of Arrowhead Game Studios, the game’s developer, accusing them of nerfing popular weapons like the flamethrower and shotgun. Players are claiming weapons were nerfed to promote the Freedom’s Flame Warbond that was released with the new update.

The players also said that the Escalation of Freedom update has server issues, few enemies and features added, plus some enemy units are even considered overpowered to be taken down in Tier-10 missions.

Arrowhead Studios CEO Jorjani have assessed the situation, saying that the Helldivers developers are paying attention to the problems and will tweak it as needed. He also said in another tweet that he was pelted with player complaints and promised to fix them in a hotfix. He did say that some prefer a more casual style of playing, and put it as a reason to nerf some weapons for balance.

At the time of writing, Helldivers II has received a spike of negative reviews due to the changes this is the second major blowback to the game. In May, an attempt to force Helldivers II players to use a PlayStation Network account to play the game has garnered the game very negative reviews.

Helldivers II has been available since February 2024 for Windows PC (via Steam) and PlayStation 5.