Highlights

  • Helldivers 2 leaks hint at new vehicles as strategems, potentially altering gameplay balance and tension.
  • Developer must carefully balance vehicles like they did with mechs to prevent overpowering gameplay.
  • Vehicles may complicate missions with high speeds and durability, threatening game pillars and objectives.

Recent leaks suggest that Helldivers 2 will be receiving vehicles, most likely for use as special strategems. The arrival of vehicles in the massively successful live-service game has yet to be officially confirmed by developer Arrowhead Studios, but the ostensible veracity of the leaks, combined with the recent launch of mechs in Helldivers 2, makes the prospect seem likely.

While the idea of spreading intergalactic democracy at breakneck, motor-powered speeds has a lot of potential, Arrowhead Studios may want to use a gentle hand when adding vehicles to the game. Co-op shooters aren't exactly a rare breed, but Helldivers 2 has managed to carve out a space for itself in the market by offering gameplay that is truly unique: players are constantly oscillating between being overpowered super-soldiers and overwhelmed, meek humans in over their heads, and this dichotomy helps the game maintain a finely-tuned sense of tension and chaos that simply isn't found in other, similar multiplayer games. A bad implementation of vehicles could upset this balance.

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Helldivers 2 Should Take a Conservative Approach to Vehicles

Like with Mechs, Helldivers 2 Will Need to Carefully Balance Its Vehicles

Assuming the recent Helldivers 2 vehicle leaks are accurate, it's worth wondering how exactly they will function in-game. Current evidence points to vehicles being available as strategems, allowing players to call them in for specific use cases. It seems likely that players will be able to leverage vehicles much in the same way as mechs, in the sense that they will be on a long cooldown and offer some sort of risk-reward balance.

Although some players have been unhappy with their underwhelming power, Helldivers 2's mechs might be a good blueprint for its vehicles. The recently released EXO-45 mechs, or "exosuits," are flashy and powerful tools that players can use to level the playing field, especially against Automatons, but they aren't completely overpowered. The game reels in their effectiveness by making them relatively brittle and keeping them on a long cooldown, ensuring that players can't just spam them for an easy victory. On top of this, the mechs' slow movement speed and deadly explosiveness on destruction mean that there's a risk involved in the reward of better firepower and slightly more durability. If vehicles are similarly well-balanced, then this could prevent them from being overpowered or undermining the aforementioned tension of the game.

Vehicles Might Be Even More Tricky Than Mechs to Implement

The ongoing balancing of Helldivers 2 mechs is helping to keep the game's design pillars intact, but vehicles might be a different beast entirely. The vehicles revealed in the leaks appear to be APCs and all-terrain vehicles similar to the Warthogs from Halo, both of which would be, by nature, faster than a person on foot. So, while Arrowhead Studios could take balancing measures like making vehicles explode upon taking too much damage, this may be rendered far less risky by their ability to rapidly extricate away from danger. With a core part of most Helldivers 2 missions being extraction and high-risk traversal, the higher speeds and better durability of vehicles might trivialize certain objectives.

Vehicle speed could be particularly overpowering when fighting Terminids, as they have considerably more limited options in ranged combat.

The best Helldivers 2 strategems feel like substantial elevations of player power while still being relatively constrained and, more importantly, not altering the fundamental team-shooter gameplay that is so central to the experience. Thankfully, the multi-rider design of the leaked vehicles, combined with their peripheral turrets, means that vehicles will likely serve to support Helldivers 2's co-op nature, making them as interesting and multifaceted as they are powerful. If Arrowhead can manage to show restraint with regard to things like cooldown time, firepower, and general availability and balancing, then vehicles will likely only serve to enhance the game, not alter it on a fundamental level.