Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios is facing fresh backlash from the community after nerfing fire damage weapons days before releasing its pyromaniac-themed premium warbond, Freedom’s Flame . The balance changes introduced by this week’s Escalation of Freedom update include a number of tweaks to the game’s fire damage system designed to make flame-spewing weapons behave “more realistically." Some frustrated community members have taken to social media to complain the update has dramatically nerfed fire-based weapons such as the flamethrower, once considered a potent antidote to armored terminids chargers.
Helldivers 2’s Steam page has seen more than 2,000 negative reviews push its recent review score from ‘mostly positive’ to ‘mixed’ in a few days. Others took to social media to vent about the developer’s perceived nerf-happy approach to weapon balancing. Arrowhead has acknowledged the backlash, with community manager Baskinator assuring players on Discord that developers had “heard your feedback” related to fire damage, and the studio was now “having a lot of internal discussions about the best course of action.
” Studio CEO Shams Jorjani subsequently said on X/Twitter that a hotflix will be deployed “at some point” that will “focus on bugs, and might include some balance changes," but “other things need time to cook a bit more." This isn’t the first time Arrowhead has faced the inferno of community rebellion. Helldivers 2 dire.