Arrowhead has pledged to continue trying to get the mix right, noting that regarding future updates, "our intention is that balance should be fun, not 'balanced' for the sake of balance." The controversial changes to the flamethrower, which served as the spark for this latest conflagration, will be reworked, as will a re-prioritization of bug fixes and performance improvements. It sounds like the developer intends to make some fairly sweeping changes, but unfortunately, we've heard it all before.
New CEO Shams Jorjani was brought in to sort out this exact situation, and we don't imagine there is a whole lot of goodwill left in the community at this point. Helldivers 2 remains a fantastic game to dive into, but it's clear that Arrowhead has struggled to satisfy its most hardcore players. This cycle of promising updates to fix updates has been rubbing otherwise Democracy-loving Helldivers the wrong way for some time now.
Are you keeping up with Helldivers 2? How has your own experience of Escalation of Freedom been? Will Arrowhead be able to get the game to a sustainable place before its most hardcore remaining players up and leave? Let us know in the comments section below.