Helldivers 2’s Biggest Content Update Yet, Escalation Of Freedom, Arrives In August

Helldivers 2 has been one of 2024’s biggest successes, and developer Arrow Head Games is prepping to launch its most substantial update yet. Escalation of Freedom is an upcoming update that adds new missions, new hazards, and, of course, new bugs.

Arriving on August 6, Escalation of Freedom challenges players with a new level 10 difficulty and introduces new mission objectives, such as locating and extracting a crying larva that attracts Terminids. The game also receives new, larger fortress-like outposts for players to capture. The swamp biome gets a spookier facelift, and acid storms can now reduce the armor for players and enemies so both sides take greater damage. New Terminids and Automatons will clash with players, and Arrow Head Games teases that Escalation of Freedom features more surprises players will have to discover on their own. Check out the trailer for a look at what’s to come. 

Escalation of Freedom also brings quality-of-life improvements including an update to address grief kicking. Per the PlayStation Blog, the game is getting “a system where if a player is kicked, they will spawn into a new session as the host with all of the team’s loot from their previous session. All items can now be picked up by the player before extraction. The squad doing the kicking will see a message in the chat widget that a player has been kicked, yet their loot remains unchanged.”

For more on Helldivers 2, check out our review.