Helldivers 2 has long struggled to stabilize its rocky foundations, but Arrowhead Game Studios is now preparing to launch an "opening salvo" and blast away the game's performance issues like a colony of juicy bugs. And, encouragingly, it's recruited PlayStation's PC port studio for help.
Helldivers 2 players have been complaining about the game's questionable performance for well over a year, most recently in an uncensored Reddit AMA with creative lead and former CEO Johan Pilestedt where he promised clearer, more frequent communication with the community.
That promise manifested today in a new Steam blog revealing a new update coming on May 27. "In collaboration with our partners at Nixxes, this release brings a range of long-awaited updates across all platforms," the dev writes. "Every frame counts when the pressure is on. This update focuses on three primary pillars: stability, latency reduction, and advanced upscaling technologies - helping ensure performance stays consistent, even in the most demanding moments."
To balance visual clarity and performance, the studio is implementing FSR 3.1 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, PSSR 1 on PS5 Pro, and various upscaling solutions on PC depending on how buffed up your machine is.
Arrowhead is also looking to lighten the load on GPUs with VRS technology, and is adding DRS (dynamic resolution scaling) to all versions of the game to make sure the frame rate stays steady even in more intensive situations. You can read a list of changes in the studio's blog post now, but note there'll be "additional fixes" come next week, too.
This upcoming update is far from Arrowhead's last step in making everyone less mad. The developer calls it "just the opening salvo in an ongoing campaign to improve performance across the fleet" as it also promises to monitor the situation carefully from here on and deploy hotfixes when needed.
"We're also preparing a dedicated tech-focused update later this summer to push these improvements even further," it writes. "With our friends at Nixxes dropping onto the battlefield as our backup, we're committing to make diving with your friends better and better. And keep the feedback coming, Helldivers, it's the key to helping us shape the future of the game."
This is far from the first time Arrowhead's promised big changes to the way it updates and improves its best-selling shooter, which is otherwise a brilliant game, I should add, but Nixxes' involvement is a promising step forward this time. The PlayStation subsidiary is responsible for bringing several first-party games to PC (Marvel's Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima) with really solid ports.
