Helldivers 2 weapon customization and attachments explained

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How to customize weapons
Weapon stats explained
How to level up weapons

The new Helldivers 2 weapon customization system and attachments allow players to modify and tweak all their guns in HD2 to impressive effect. Now by levelling guns up, you can swap out sights, change underbarrel attachments, alter muzzles and more besides. In essence, Helldivers 2 has become a little closer to the complex weapon alteration of Call of Duty, including the option to add weapon skins and cosmetic patterns to your guns.

Having tested this system ourselves in the wake of the new update, we'll cover the full extent of the Helldivers 2 weapon customization below. We'll explain how you get new attachments for guns, what they actually do to its stats like ergonomics, and what levelling up weapons in HD2 requires.

How to customize weapons in Helldivers 2 with attachments

To customize weapons in HD2 and modify your guns with new attachments in the wake of the May 13 Helldivers 2 update, you need to do the following:

Equip the primary weapon you want to customize to your loadout and take it into missions.
After the mission, your weapon will gain XP based on your performance (see more below) and level up accordingly.
Go to the Armory and select the weapon, then press L3/Left Analog Stick to open the Customization menu.
Here you can buy new attachments with Requisition Slips, assuming you've reached the weapon level at which they're unlocked.
Attachments change the effect or stats of the weapon, depending on which one you have equipped.
You can save multiple weapon configurations to switch between.

It's important to remember that at time of writing only Primary Helldivers 2 weapons can be customized, and even then not all of them. There's a few exceptions that can't be modded, such as the Helldivers 2 Killzone crossover weapons. Likewise, not all customizable weapons can be altered to the same degree – for example, the Constitution can't have any attachments changed, only the paint pattern on it altered.

All Helldivers 2 weapon stats and recoil sim explained

Below we explain all the weapon stats in Helldivers 2. Not all of these can be impacted by attachments – it depends on the weapon.

Horizontal Recoil: How much the weapon moves from side-to-side when firing.
Vertical Recoil: How much the weapon moves up and down when firing.
Sway: How much the weapon sways when aiming down sights.
Ergonomics: Speed of aiming down sights.
Magazines: Maximum amount of spare ammunition that can be carried at once.
Reload Time: How long the gun takes to reload.
Damage: Damage done to enemies (or allies) per impact.
Fire Limit/Capacity: How many bullets or how much energy charge the weapon can hold per magazine.
Fire Rate: How quickly the weapon can fire per second.

There are other factors that come into play that aren't measured in the stats, such as the magnification on the scope (if there is one). There's also the Recoil Sim, the graph in the lower right-hand corner, which is designed to give a rough idea of how much spray or spread there is to the weapon's firing pattern. The more concentrated the dots on it are, the more accurate and precise the weapon is.

How to level up weapons in Helldivers 2

To level up a weapon in HD2 to earn new attachments, you just need to select it as your primary weapon and bring it into missions. However, the experience earned isn't based on weapon use, it's simply tied to the experience you earn from the mission generally, at least from my experience.

This means that killing enemies through other means (such as Stratagems and secondary weapons) doesn't negatively impact your weapon XP gain, but it also doesn't benefit the XP gain to exclusively use it either. In fact, how much you use the weapon doesn't make a difference: all that matters is the usual factors towards regular XP gain – secondary objectives, clearing encampments, completing the mission on a higher difficulty, and ensuring everybody makes it back in the Helldivers 2 extraction process.

To test this theory, I brought a weapon into a mission and didn't use it once: it made no difference and I still managed to level it up accordingly.

Want more help with HD2? Find out everything you need to know about the Helldivers 2 Illuminate faction, or check out the Helldivers 2 best armor to pair with your new weapons!