Helldivers 2 Finally Does Something About Its Most Toxic Players

Players were told that it was time for "Helldivers 2" to finally slow down while the devs worked on new updates, but this summer has been even slower than we expected. The Galactic War is still raging, but since Arrowhead Game Studios changed the wild pace of its updates, some Helldivers have been checking out. The game as a whole lost 90% of its playerbase, but now there's a big reason for everyone to check back into the latest happenings on Super Earth. The game's next update, "Escalation of Freedom," is packed with new enemies, new missions, and even a new difficulty level for players to tackle. One feature is getting more attention than all of that content, though: Arrowhead has finally come up with a way to address grief-kicking.

For a long time, "Helldivers 2" players have complained about hosts kicking them from games for a variety of petty reasons. Something as simple as not having a preferred loadout or armor style can get people removed from games, but once "Escalation of Freedom" drops, being kicked will sting a little less. In a PlayStation blog post talking about the update, community manager Katherine Baskin explained, "We have implemented 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." You still need to complete the mission to reap the rewards, but now you'll definitely have a fighting chance.

This change has been a long time coming. Months ago, Arrowhead's CEO asked "Helldivers 2" players for suggestions on how to deal with toxic hosts, and Katherine Baskin notes in the new blog post, "We're committed to making changes that will improve the player experience and encourage healthy, cooperative gameplay." For the most part, the community is pretty excited about the new kicking system, but some players have concerns.

One commenter wrote, "Maybe it's an exaggeration, but I'm also afraid that exploits will soon be found and people using them will demand/provoke to be kicked." The worry is that toxic players will now purposefully try to get themselves kicked from games so they can run off with a copy of all the hard-earned rewards. In theory, Arrowhead has already mitigated that issue. Since players still need to finish missions to earn rewards, it's actually in their best interests to stay in a game that already has a full team working toward the end goal. When the update drops on August 6, the player community will find out together if Arrowhead's new plan truly solves one of the longest-running problems with "Helldivers 2."