The latest sneak peek of the big Helldivers 2 September 17 update brings good and glorious news for all Railgun enthusiasts. Developer Arrowhead "kind of quadrupled" its heavy-slaying Durable damage and jacked up its overcharge damage bonus, potentially taking us straight back to the armor-piercing days of old.
Helldivers 2 CCO Johan Pilestedt and design director Niklas Malmborg discussed the Railgun in a new short video previewing the upcoming update. "The Railgun's damage will get a boost too! Durable damage will be increased from 60 to 225 and fully overcharging damage will be increased from 150% to 250%," the attached written tweet explains.
The Railgun's damage will get a boost too! Durable damage will be increased from 60 to 225 and fully overcharging damage will be increased from 150% to 250%. #BuffDivers pic.twitter.com/i3OjNREro3September 11, 2024
"What have we done to the railgun?" Pilestedt asks.
"We booted it up again," Malmborg answers, seemingly acknowledging that the gun had largely fallen out of fashion after some sizable, arguably not entirely undeserved nerfs.
"The Railgun does a lot of damage to normal enemies," Malmborg continues. "It didn't do that much to very large enemies. So we kind of quadrupled that from 60 to 225 in Durable damage. Just in safe mode, it will be stronger. Normally if you charge it up close to full, you did 50% more damage. Now you deal 150% more."
Better still, Pilestedt and Malmborg confirmed the gun will still have the same charge time. It truly does seem like a massive, no-strings-attached buff – the first of many to come, if Arrowhead's increasingly unhinged rhetoric is any indication.
The Flamethrower, which recently reignited embers of balance discourse, is due for its own massive buff come September 17. This is all positioned as part of Arrowhead's push to "make the game more fun" after a "disconnect" formed between what the devs and players were pushing for.
