"All planets are now Malevelon Creek" - Helldivers 2 players reckon the latest patch may have accidentally delivered a sizeable difficulty spike

A huge Helldivers 2 patch dropped yesterday, June 13, bringing with it more tweaks and changes than you can properly read through in less than half an hour. While it's generally gone down a treat among players, the revisions Arrowhead made to enemy and patrol spawning look like they might be the exception, with folks complaining of a sharp difficulty spike.

If you were busy washing your hair yesterday, not only did the hefty patch Arrowhead's had in the works for a little while now arrive, but the Viper Commandos warbond also deployed right on time. Sadly, it doesn't seem like being able to don a beret is helping players who're complaining of a post-patch increase in deaths and rage quitting.

As part of the patch, Arrowhead toned down the amount of heavily armored enemies which spawn during higher difficulty missions, filling in the gaps with more smaller enemies, as well as reverting patrol spawning back to what it was like prior to patch 01.000.300.

This should, in theory, have made things a bit easier - with less big baddies being summoned simultaneously to potentially overwhelm even the most hardened of super earth veterans. However, some players are reporting that they've found things a lot tougher since the patch dropped, leading them to assert that Arrowhead's tweaks may well not be having the intended effect.

In addition to folks posting gameplay clips like the one above to the game's subreddit, a few have flagged what they've seen as an unintended difficulty spike to Arrowhead's community managers on Discord. "All planets are now Malevelon Creek," wrote one such player, "[the] game was overwhelming, but now it's TOO overwhelming because the second you peek a corner you are going to die immediately, no matter how well you are set up."

"Spawns and patrols being reverted should make it easier AFAIK," community manager Twinbeard responded to this assertion, "Have to monitor this before being able to clarify, but off the top of my head, it seems a bit strange tbh."

Since that exchange, a plenty of other players have taken to Reddit to tell their own stories of ending up pinned down by barrages of enemies while fighting both Terminds and Automatons at difficulties higher than about five, although some accounts also seem to suggest that operations at difficulties lower than this have also been affected.

"Finding cover on bot front [at difficulty level] 7+ is just pointless," one wrote, "Just run, but instead [of running] you just dive and hope for the best. Also, sticking in the ragdoll loop is now a standard thing. So if they ragdolled you, there is a chance they will keep you ragdolling until you die."

So, for now it seems like you'll need to try and be extra prepared whenever you drop into the action, though odds are Arrowhead'll provide a fix pretty sharpish if it detects something's up once it's had a chance to investigate.