Helldivers 2's big update, Patch 1.001.100, is finally here, bringing a bunch of highly requested buffs and changes

Helldivers 2's much-hyped latest update, Patch 1.001.100, is finally here, brining with it a bunch of buffs and tweaks players have been requesting to everything from weapons, to armour, and even enemies.

Arrowhead's been busy hyping up this update by announcing some of its headline contents on a daily basis ever since it penned in today, September 17, as the date it would drop, via a blog post that also included some stuff you can expect to see in the patch. It's still worth having a look through the full notes, though.

You can do just that by checking out the 4000 word-ish long patch notes from Arrowhead, which run down all of the changes and fixes all in one place, using the kind of familiar format you should hopefully find relaxing. There's also full 35 minute-ish long video that sees Arrowhead developers Johan Pilestedt and Niklas Malmborg talk through a whole heap of the changes, so watch that if you don't find words relaxing.

So what does the update do? Well, loads, with some of the big stuff that Arrowhead hadn't fully revealed before the patch went live including the fact that "the Galactic War map can now display the location of strategically important assets" and a new emote wheel. Arrowhead writes that the former "will make it much easier for the Helldivers to take them into consideration when deciding on their next move"

To address some weapons becoming ineffective against the Terminids, Arrowhead's "reworked armor penetration, anti-tank weapons, enemy armor and health values", with the goal of improving "the effectiveness of weapons such as the Autocannon, Heavy Machine Gun, Flamethrower, and Anti-Materiel Rifle against heavily armored enemies." "On the Bot front, the studio continues, "Hulks have also had their armor reduced, making them more vulnerable to a wider range of weapons.

"We are adjusting damage mechanics to make the damage Helldivers receive more consistent over time by reducing 100% extra headshot damage to 50%. To maintain the overall challenge of the game, we've slightly increased the damage taken to other parts of the body. Our intent is to preserve the intensity of the gameplay while minimizing frustrating situations where sudden headshots cause large damage spikes.

"With these changes," Arrowhead writes, "along with an upgraded Helldiver arsenal, enemy adjustments, and more consistent damage, the overall difficulty may slightly decrease. We'll be monitoring this closely and will listen to the community on how you think it feels."

Nestled among a huge arreay of changes to weapons, enemies and strategems are all the changes the studio had previously announced, like the buffs to flamethrowers that should revert things to the pre-Escalation of Freedom update state of play, improvements to the blasting ability of the old favourite railgun, and tweaks to the breaker shotgun's stagger force and magazine size.

Beyond this, the arc thrower's gained some extra lightning bolt jumps, the eruptor's been given back its shrapnel in a fashion that hopefully shouldn't lead to too many accidental self-kills, and rocket-toting enemies like the bot devstatator will now run out of ammo or have to reload.

Oh, and the 500KG bomb's blast radius should finally match up with the impressive visual explosion you get when you drop it on some unfortunate foes.

Are you planning to delve into Helldivers 2 straight away to see how this new patch has switched up the diving experience? Let us know below!