Helldivers 2 Changes Major Order as Official Mod Policy Nears

A lot is happening in Helldivers 2 right now, from an odd change to the current campaign to a message that could shape how the game treats player-made content going forward. On the Galactic War Table, Senge 23 has finally been secured, but a fresh defense has appeared, and you will need to protect it all over again.

SEAF has a heavy presence, the Democracy Space Station is on site, and divers are winning by a wide margin. You won't know whether it holds until the timer runs out, but there is still plenty of time left. The wider goals are still running too. Players are being asked to complete operations against the Illuminate 7,500 times and to kill 1 billion of them overall.

The figures look a little different from what you might expect, and a dispatch explains why further down.

To chip away at that billion, head to Siemnot once the Senge 23 defense line is cleared and run Mindless Masses, one of the easiest missions around right now. You can farm Voteless in Mindless Masses, and the footage isn't down to any mod. The only ones installed are a few cosmetic tweaks to make the gear look good.

The speed comes from the new Implosion Grenade, which clears Voteless crowds almost instantly. Each Implosion Grenade throw stacks quickly kills. With three days left on that target, Mindless Masses with the Implosion Grenade looks like the smartest route to the Illuminate total.

The SEAF are still present on Frontier even though the planet has already been taken, which is strange. There is also movement on Fori Prime, where around 8,000 divers are trying to hold their ground and secure the Terminid Control System. Nobody knows why yet. It will be interesting to see where it goes, since the current update is in its final weeks and something new is due very soon.

That brings you to the dispatch. It announced a Major Order adjustment, saying ongoing analysis showed a need to reprioritize objectives and that divers should immediately help SEAF defend Senge 23 by wiping out huge numbers of Illuminate.

The operations target was deprioritized, which in practice means Helldivers 2 completed it for you.

There is probably a reason behind it. A player had asked a member of the community team to look at the operations completion tempo, since progress on the second half of the Major Order seemed off. The request went to the developers, and they adjusted it. The target may have been misconfigured and was closed to ensure completion, but it still looked odd.

The same team member also weighed in on armor. A player asked how likely other armor sets are to get camouflage patterns. For now, only the sets that already have them do, but the request for more has been raised with the developers. It's still unknown whether they'll act on it.

On PC, players are heavily customizing Helldivers 2's look. If you have wanted red-and-black armor for years and been stuck with the same two sets, a mod lets you recolor everything, lasers included, so Helldivers 2 looks the way you picture it. That is exactly why one longtime player moved over to PC, and the cosmetic side has been a lot of fun so far.

Some of those players have been contacting PlayStation about it. One person shared a reply from PlayStation's player support team, saying it knows modding has become a major topic in the community and that it plans to publish a blog post in the coming weeks to clarify its stance on mods in Helldivers 2. Players are told to watch the social channels for it.

Support added that they don't yet have visibility into the specifics, but the post should cover what players are asking about.

This is a big one because nobody knows what the response will look like. Some level of restriction seems necessary to protect Helldivers 2's integrity, but wiping mods out entirely would be a mistake. Cosmetic changes and quality-of-life tweaks look harmless.

Things get murkier with a mod that turns Eagle 1 into something closer to Ace Combat. It changes what Helldivers 2 is, and many people run it in public lobbies, which ruins matches for everyone else. The bigger question is enforcement. If Arrowhead doesn't support modding, which isn't surprising given how often it takes the fun out of things, it is unclear how it would stop anyone.

The studio has previously noted its limited ability to ban players, so it may not have much it can do. Modding can be harmless or very disruptive, and how the post handles both sides will show how many people stay. For one longtime player, Helldivers 2 had not run properly on PC for two years until a large mod pack fixed it, and now it runs flawlessly.

Arrowhead does need to look into it, but it should also stay relaxed and leave room for the quality-of-life and cosmetic changes already out there in the community. Closed-off mods are a different matter and should not be a problem. One project adds an 11th difficulty option that doubles mission size, making the map enormous.

The creator shared a sneak peek, noting it took two minutes to drive across the map.

It will not work in public lobbies, and never will, because it rejects any network connection trying to reach Arrowhead's servers. It runs on a local backend, so it doesn't touch public play. That approach is the best way to do it. People can have fun without everyone else dealing with the fallout, and the public impact of modifications has already been clear. Done properly, they can be harmless. Fingers crossed the studio sees it the same way.

Elsewhere, the community has been sharing what looks like Exercise Number 2 of the Immediate Observation Tactics: another picture of camouflaged divers supposedly hiding. When the answer gets circled, it makes no sense, and it is hard to tell whether the posters are joking or serious.

On the weapons side, the new Helldivers 2 stratagem weapons have turned up on the wiki, and the AP values for the latest primary weapons have now been found too. Recent coverage went through most of this, including the push around community-made content, and the community had plenty to say.

One player hopes that when the Incinerator FRV arrives, it deals the same damage as the tank when running enemies over, given the front blades. The gunner and supply versions kept getting stuck in hordes, so that would be a welcome fix. That would be cool, and if the Incinerator FRV shows up, that would be a plus.

It might not be the best fit for this specific campaign, though, and something a bit different would be nice.

Another player thinks the AMW-20 Apex must be AP5, reasoning that a bigger rifle hits harder. It is an anti-materiel rifle, so anti-tank penetration belongs in the conversation for this weapon. The answer is due on Tuesday, and until then everything is speculation.

A third comment suggested that if the AMR needs a buff to stay viable, it should get an integrated suppressor. The AMR still works very well, and nobody knows yet what the AMW-20 Apex will look like, whether it will be better or simply more viable. Some balance between the two is needed, so that the choice comes down to what you enjoy using. Don't downplay the AMR, because the weapon has come too far.

That is the current state of Helldivers 2: a rewritten Major Order, a statement on player-made content on the way, and weapon stats and the Incinerator FRV still awaiting confirmation. Once the blog post lands and the AMW-20 Apex stats arrive on Tuesday, the picture of where things are heading should be a lot clearer.