Patch 01.003.000

Freedoms Greetings Helldivers. Release Captain Carlberg here back with another update straight from Super Earth High Command. Without further ado lets dive straight in

Overview

• New Illuminate faction enemies

• New Weapon Customizations and Progression

• Crash fixes

• Weapon fixes

• Miscellaneous fixes

Major Update

Weapon Customization Gear up, Helldivers—your arsenal just got personal! With the new Weapon Customization system, you can now tailor your favorite weapons to match your combat style and preferences once you’ve progressed and unlocked different attachments. Whether it's tweaking sights for precision, changing color patterns, adjusting magazines for ammo capacity, muzzles to optimize weapon performance characteristics or adjusting underbarrels for the handling you want, you're in command of how your weaponry performs on the battlefield. Tinker in the menu, customize your specific weapon configs and switch between them during the mission loadout sequence. It's time to fight for Super Earth with weapons that are truly yours!

We are aware of a bug that prevents players from canceling customization with a controller. We have a fix identified and prepared for our next hotfix. In the meantime, you can save the customization and then go in and do it again.

New Illuminate Enemies

Stingray: Jetfighters that provide Illuminate support from the sky, targeting Helldivers and lining up devastating strafing runs.

Crescent Overseer: Has the ability to lay barrages on Helldivers in cover.

Fleshmob: A failed Illuminate experiment made up of Voteless parts turned into a brute battlefield force that the Helldivers must work hard to destroy.

Balancing

Weapon balances:

• Spread

• Drag

• Sway

• Melee weapons stamina cost

• Shrapnel spawning

• Fire damage

Spread: Spread refers to how much a projectile veers from the point you're aiming at when you fire. This rebalance primarily targets SMGs and sidearms, which previously had noticeably higher spread values. We've reviewed all primary, sidearm, and support weapons with the intent to significantly reduce spread overall, as it didn’t make much sense for these specific weapons to have such high inaccuracy.

Drag: Drag determines how quickly a projectile loses speed over distance, affecting its damage. We've increased drag for pistol-caliber ammunition (used in SMGs and some sidearms) to better represent its shorter, wider projectile compared to rifle rounds. As a result, these weapons will be slightly less effective at longer ranges.

Sway: Sway refers to how much the weapon's aim shifts, influenced by factors like movement and stance. It represents the weapon's inertia and stability—so weapons with lower ergonomics will experience less sway, while those with higher ergonomics will have more. Sidearms will naturally have more sway than primaries due to the lack of support features like stocks. This balance patch specifically focuses on adjusting sway for primaries and sidearms.

Stamina Cost: All melee weapons now consume less stamina when attacking, reducing the cost from 0.1 to 0.05. This change makes melee combat less punishing and allows for easier repositioning between strikes. The affected weapons include the CQC-30 Stun Baton, CQC-19 Stun Lance, CQC-5 Combat Hatchet, and the Entrenchment Tool.

Shrapnel spawning: With this update, shrapnel will now always spawn in a full 360-degree spread, regardless of where the explosion occurs. This means weapons like the R-36 Eruptor will now more reliably hit the intended target with their shrapnel. In addition, we’ve adjusted shrapnel performance against armor. Shrapnel now has reduced effectiveness at poor impact angles, to reflect its lack of design for armor penetration in such situations.

These shrapnel balance changes will impact the following weapons:

• R-36 Eruptor

• G-6