Helldivers 2 tweaked one of its most popular Stratagems because players weren't using it as Arrowhead intended

Developer Arrowhead Game Studio recently deployed a mega-patch for Helldivers 2, bringing in over 100 changes, tweaks, and buffs to everything from weapons to the Galactic War Table. But one of the game's most popular Stratagems was changed to better fit how players were using it, rather than how Arrowhead intended for it to be used.

Helldivers 2's Orbital Precision Strike is a Stratagem that calls down - you guessed it - an orbital strike onto a single location. Unlike the Orbital Laser, the tool doesn't sweep through the battlefield but simply blasts your chosen location before disappearing. Arrowhead's "original intent" was for players to use it on "fixed positions" - like bot factories or bug nests - but that hasn't stopped divers from "using it against pretty much everything," according to a recent blog post.

Rather than making changes to nudge players into using the Stratagem how the team originally wanted it to be used, Arrowhead has instead buffed the Stratagem to accommodate what players are already doing. As part of the new patch, the Orbital Precision Strike has both a lowered call in time and a decreased cooldown, making it more effective against moving targets and "more competitive in comparison to Eagle Stratagems."

Arrowhead has been slowly making changes to how it approaches balancing the hit game as previous patches swung too far and nerfed some fan-favorite tools into oblivion. The latest patch is part of a (seemingly successful) effort to rebalance the game, hence why updates will slow down from here on out.

Helldivers 2 won’t be getting a story mode because “that’s like building an entirely new game,” according to the CEO.