Uh oh, Helldivers 2's latest patch makes its planets even more dangerous than they already are

Attention, soldiers of Super Earth! A fresh Helldivers 2’s patch has been deployed on PC, with PS5 soon to follow. What does it do? Well, by the looks of it, make heading into battle on a hostile planet even more of a perilous prospect.

Before you ask, no, this isn’t the update that delivers mechs to the game, though they have now officially been confirmed to be ready for deployment “soon”. It does contain some pretty important changes, though, especially if you’re a fan of weather or have been concerned about the likes of armour bugs and - god forbid - weapon balancing.

As outlined in the notes for Minor Patch 01.000.100, its main highlight is the addition of some “planetary hazards” and “additional environmental challenges” to some worlds, which seem like they’ll make your battles even more hectic. The latter, for example, “will appear at random while you are deployed” and range “from fire tornadoes to meteor showers and many more”.

Yeah, maybe you might need that mech backup as soon as you can get it. Aside from unleashing some flaming cyclones on your bottom, the patch modifies Eradicate missions to “require more kills and enemies spawn more often”. “The time to complete the mission was previously shorter than intended and should now usually take twice as long to complete,” Arrowhead notes.

Beyond that, there’s plenty of weapon balancing - with the guns affected being listed - and the usual raft of bug fixes. The most noteworthy of these rectifies an issue with “armour rating values not reducing damage as intended” which has been annoying people since around the time the game launched. Other key changes include the fact that, from now on: “Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion.” Nice.

You also shouldn’t find certain bug holes “unnecessarily hard to destroy”, be able to throw a grenade after drowning, or be unable to throw snowballs after being ragdolled. There have also been some changes made to lighting, so you shouldn’t have a chance of being stuck in a dark hellscape next time you drop.

This patch has already arrived on PC, and Arrowhead says a PS5 version is “coming soon”.

In other Helldivers 2-related news, Sony HASN'T acquired Arrowhead Game Studios, no matter what kind of rumous you might have heard.