Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has strongly suggested it'll start slowing down the release of new patches to maintain quality.
This comes from the official Helldivers Discord channel, in which community manager Twinbeard was asked when the latest patch will drop. "When it's done," Twinbeard replied.
There's been a pervading sentiment from inside Arrowhead that the developers have struggled since launch to keep up with the game's explosive success, and it seems now the studio is keen to give itself some breathing room when it comes to releasing new updates.
"We want to take some more time for this one and potentially between future patches since we feel cadence has probably been a bit too high to be able to maintain the quality standard we want and you deserve," Twinbeard said.
Just yesterday, Twinbeard was asked about the ongoing issue of weapons balancing in Helldivers 2 and said simply that Arrowhead needs "more time," adding, "We're cooking." Today's messaging from Twinbeard, while similar in tone, appears to be related to Helldivers 2's update release cadence more generally.
"Patching a lot risks can easily disrupt work flow and takes more resources than you might think; it needs planning, implementing, monitoring, possible tweaking in hotfixes etc," Twinbeard said. "For this one we prefer to stretch it out a little, hopefully with a good result."
Asked whether new updates will be released bi-weekly or monthly going forward, Twinbeard said that has yet to be decided. "I'd say it's [something] we have to try out and get a feel for. ATM we feel a slightly lower cadence overall will benefit both us, you and the game."
Following a string of generally poorly received balance updates, Arrowhead recently confirmed it's looking into test servers to allow for some player feedback before patches are deployed to the full game. That, combined with a slower release cadence, will ideally keep players happy and ensure the folks at Arrowhead aren't burning themselves out.
