Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has revealed the game’s next Premium Warbond, called Viper Commandos and due out on June 13th.
In a post on the PlayStation blog, Katherine Baskin, social media and community manager at Arrowhead, said the studio had responded to feedback on Helldivers 2’s Warbonds and changed its approach as a result. For starters, Arrowhead has slowed down the pace at which it releases Warbonds “to give us a little more time to polish these designs before they go live.” Baskin continued, “We don’t want to rush anything out of the oven before it’s fully baked.”
Arrowhead has also changed the order of items in each Warbond to make room for new item types as well as higher quality armor and weapons. “This will prevent us from just adding more of everything, which can lead to weapons that feel redundant and armor that isn’t interesting,” explained Baskin. “It’s time to focus on quality over quantity.”
“When we started researching items for Viper Commandos, we wanted to make sure we answered our players’ calls for a stronger theme that coordinates all items, more emotes, unique armor passives, and more thoughtful designs rather than just give more of the same. “
The game’s community had called on the developer to slow down when it came to major balance changes as well as Warbond releases, feeling that Arrowhead sometimes went too far with nerfs and failed to include meta-impactful weapons and gear. in Warbonds.
To that end, Viper Commandos revolves around an up-close-and-personal style of gameplay, which to any existing Helldivers 2 player might sound a little scary. The new primary is a new version of the Liberator called the AR-23A Liberator Carbine. It has a modified, shortened form-factor that handles differently than the original, with slightly higher recoil but faster handling, designed for close-range spraying and praying.
There’s also the new SG-22 Bushwhacker three-barreled shotgun with two different firing modes, including one that fires all three barrels at once. This shotgun is the first in Helldivers 2 to be classified as a secondary weapon, which should open up the loadout meta a bit.
There are two new armor items, both of which have “Peak Physique passive”, which improves melee damage and weapon handling. They also both have bare arms so you can really show off your weapons.
Another first for the game are new skins for your hellpods, Exosuits and Pelican-1, “inspired by the classic forest camouflage patterns and tiger stripes”.
The new useful item is the throwing knife. “Imagine mowing down a horde of terminids and running out of ammo with only one bug left, no time to reload, so you dive back and throw a hunting knife into its shell just before it lands on you, ” said Baskin, holding him up. .
There’s also a new booster called Experimental Infusion, which gives your kids the added bonus of increasing movement speed and reducing the damage you take for a short time. And, as you’d expect, there are new capes, player cards and emotes.
As with previous Premium Warbonds, expect Viper Commandos to cost 1000 Super Credits. While you can earn Super Credits from the game and the Warbond itself, you can also buy them for real-world money. Through the in-game store, 1000 Super Credits cost $9.99. Premium Warbonds do not expire, so you can go through them at your own pace, safe in the knowledge that their items will remain available.
The Viper Commandos announcement comes as many within the Helldivers 2 community speculate that Arrowhead is set to add a third enemy faction to the game. The suggestion is that the Illuminate are set to enter the war across the galaxy, adding a new front to the battle against the Terminids and Automatons.
Last month, Arrowhead revealed that it’s in the process of ramping up the studio so it can “do more and better things” in the long term. IN an introductory reddit postCEO Shams Jorjani, who recently replaced previous Arrowhead CEO and current Chief Creative Officer Johan Pilestedtsaid that the studio has had to adapt to the huge success that Helldivers 2 has brought to the company.
PlayStation 5 and PC co-op shooter Helldivers 2 is the best-selling PlayStation game of all time, moving an incredible 12 million copies in just 12 weeks since it went on sale earlier this year. Amidst the huge revenue that Helldivers 2 has generated, Arrowhead itself has suffered a series of crises, including launch server issues and, most recently, a battle with Sony itself over the console maker’s controversial attempt to force Steam players link the account to PlayStation Network.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.