So, how was everyone’s long weekend? I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think I may have even sensed the fading ghost of an immeasurably whisper-thin ray of sunshine at one point. Enough! Says a new patch for co-op shooter Helldivers 2. You know who else enjoys basking in the pleasant glow of mildly enjoyable weather when there’s freedoms that need fighting for? Bug sympathisers, that’s who. As such, the developers have gone and added new planetary hazards in the form of blizzards and sandstorms, alongside the usual balance tweaks.
Alongside these reminders that the war for democracy is never comfortable, the efficiently-named Patch 01.000.200 also includes a host of tweaks. Notable among these are balancing changes to the mission type ‘Retrieve Essential Personnel’, which now sounds more manageable. Enemy spawn points have been placed further away from the objective, “to give players a fairer chance of defending the location.” Additionally, fewer civilians are needed to beat the mission on higher difficulties.
If you’re fond of the charming Dadish series on Switch, then you’ll be pleased to know that it’s heading into the third dimension next month with Dadish 3D.
Launching on 23rd April, 2024, Dadish 3D stars, well, Dadish as he embarks on his ‘craziest adventure yet’ to locate his missing children, who were lured away suspicious pop-up advertising. Although transitioning from 2D to 3D, the game is said to maintain the same tight platforming gameplay and witty dialogue that made the original games so attractive.
Helldivers 2’s latest patch makes some significant changes to the game balance and adds more planetary hazards for players to contend with.
Patch 01.000.200, out now across PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam, makes balance changes to missions, Stratagems, weapons, enemies, and the Helldivers themselves, as well as general fixes and stability improvements.
On the gameplay side, developer Arrowhead has added two new planetary hazards: blizzards and sandstorms. On the balance side, Arrowhead has tweaked the Retrieve Essential Personnel mission type, moving enemy spawn points farther away from the objective “to give players a fairer chance of defending the location”, and making it so there are fewer civilians required to complete the mission on higher difficulties. The Destroy Command Bunkers mission type now has more objective locations because “the mission was too easy before compared to other missions.”
Crucially, Arrowhead has also halved the negative effect of operation modifiers that increase Stratagem cooldowns or call in times.
Perhaps of most interest to players is the sweeping balance pass made to weapons, with the likes of the Anti-Materiel Rifle, Breaker Incendiary, and Dominator buffed. The Slugger, meanwhile, is nerfed. The recently added Heavy Machine Gun sees its highest fire rate mode reduced from 1200 rpm to a more “moderate” 950. On Stratagems, the Patriot Exosuit’s rockets will now penetrate armor only on direct hit.
As for enemies, the Charger, Bile Spewer, and Nursing Spewer are nerfed, as are the Shriekers. The Bile Titan can no longer be stunned, however. The Helldivers themselves are buffed, with heavy and medium armor offering better protection.
And finally, the patch adds various fixes for crashes and other bugs. Arrowhead has improved the system that prevents hellpod steering close to large or important objects. “This system is intended to prevent softlocks where players can drop on important interaction points, or drop into unintended places,” Arrowhead explained. “We will continue to monitor the state of the system after the update to see if additional tweaks are necessary.”
Moved the enemy spawn points further away from the objective to give players a fairer chance of defending the location.
There are fewer civilians required to complete the mission on higher difficulties.
Destroy Command Bunkers
Now has more objective locations, the mission was too easy before compared to other missions.
It can now appear in operations from difficulty 5.
Halved the negative effect of operation modifiers that increase stratagem cooldowns or call in times.
Primary, Secondary, & Support Weapons
Arc Thrower: fixed charging inconsistencies; it will now always take 1s to charge a shot.
Arc Thrower: reduced distance from 50m to 35m.
Arc Thrower: increased stagger force.
Guard Dog: now restores full ammo from supply boxes.
Anti-Materiel Rifle: damage increased by 30%.
Breaker Incendiary: damage per bullet increased from 15 per bullet to 20 per bullet.
Fire damage per tick increased by 50% (from all sources).
Liberator Penetrator: now has a full auto mode.
Dominator: increased damage from 200 to 300.
Dominator: increased stagger.
Diligence Counter Sniper: increased armor penetration from light to medium.
Slugger: reduced stagger.
Slugger: reduced damage from 280 to 250.
Slugger: reduced demolition force.
Slugger: fixed armor penetration tag in the menu.
Slugger, Liberator Concussive, Senator: fixed incorrect armor penetration tags in the menu.
Recoilless Rifle: increased the number of rockets you restore from supply boxes from 2 to 3.
Spear: increased the number of missiles you restore from supply boxes from 1 to 2.
Heavy Machine Gun: the highest fire rate mode reduced from 1200 rpm to a more moderate 950.
Stratagems
Patriot Exosuit: rockets will now penetrate armor only on direct hit.
Enemies
Balancing adjustments have been made to:
Chargers normal melee attack now does less damage against Exosuits.
Bile Spewer and Nursing Spewer do less damage with their puke.
The Bile Titan can no longer be stunned.
Shriekers no longer create bug breaches.
Shriekers hitting you while they are dead now does significantly less damage.
Helldiver Balancing adjustments have been made to:
Heavy and medium armor protects better and you now take about 10% less damage than before while wearing heavy and about 5% less when wearing medium armor. Fortified commando and light armor is unchanged.
Fixes
Fixed issue where save settings for PS5 would be reset when the game is rebooted, causing things such as loadout and hint settings to reset.
Enemies now properly target Exosuits. Previously, many enemies effectively ignored Exosuits if a helldiver on foot was available for them to target.
Fixed Exosuits being able to fire their weapons while opening the minimap.
The Helldiver and the Exosuit both had a bug that made them sometimes take explosion damage multiple times making things like automaton rockets be too deadly, this is now fixed.
Automaton enemy constellations that preferred to spawn more of certain Devastators types did not work and are now functioning as they should. This means that sometimes when playing against the Automatons you will face more Devastators instead of other enemy types.
We have improved the system that prevents hellpod steering close to large or important objects.
We have solved issues where the effective area around objects was a lot larger than intended.
We have reduced the number of objects that prevent hellpod steering.
Note: This system is intended to prevent softlocks where players can drop on important interaction points, or drop into unintended places. We will continue to monitor the state of the system after the update to see if additional tweaks are necessary.
Fixed cases where the ground under some assets could be bombed causing them to float.
Ballistic Shield changes
Collision mesh has been slightly increased in size for more forgiveness
Changed shield poses so that less of the helldiver is exposed
Addressed bug where parts of the helldiver would become vulnerable while using the shield in first person
Known Issues
These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.
Game might crash when picking up a snowball or throwing back a grenade
Various issues involving friend invites and cross-play
Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the Friend Requests tab.
Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
Players cannot unblock players that were not in their Friends list beforehand.
Players cannot befriend players with Steam names shorter than 3 characters
Explosive weapon stats include only direct hit damage but not explosive damage.
Explosions do not break your limbs (except for when you fly into a rock).
Planet liberation reaches 100% at the end of every Defend mission.
Drowning in deep water with a Vitality Booster equipped puts Helldiver in a broken state.
Stratagem beam might attach itself to an enemy but it will deploy to its original location.
Some player customizations (like title or body type) may reset after restarting the game.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
If you’re partial to the grim delights of Phasmophobia and not averse to the sicko enjoyments of Lethal Company, you might like new horror game Content Warning, which kind of blends the two and has the additional virtue of being free on Steam till 9am PT/5pm UK on 2nd April.
In this spooky co-op treat from Landfall Publishing, you play a bunch of amateur filmmakers – or tubers, as the kids possibly still insist on calling them – who must board a spaceship, travel to another planet and film anything monstrous they stumble on.
Mere hours after liberating Malevelon Creek, Helldivers 2 players have a new threat to contend with: mysterious cloaked ships.
Players took to social media and forums to post screenshots showing what appear to be enormous ships in orbit around Automaton planets. Redditor infinity__cube appears to be the first Helldiver to have reported a sighting, but more images have emerged since. The evidence is irrefutable: the cloaked ships are there, but they appear to be lying in wait.
Yesterday, April 1, developer Arrowhead delivered a new Major Order to Helldivers 2 players, giving them a 24-hour window to finally take back Malevelon Creek, the Automaton map dubbed ‘Space Vietnam’ by fans. The planet was liberated in only about five hours.
Now, with a new Major Order in place to fend off the Automaton counterattack, the mysterious ships have popped up in the sky across Automaton planets.
— Helldivers 2 Media (@Helldiversmedia) April 1, 2024
But what could they be? There are a number of theories, including a rather boring explanation that they are a visual bug associated with the existing Super-Destroyer ships. More exciting is the suggestion they are Illuminate ships. The Illuminate are a third alien faction most Helldivers 2 players believe are on their way to the game.
Perhaps they are evidence that the Automatons’ true might is looming over the horizon, ready to pounce now that the terrifying alien robots have been sufficiently angered. If that’s the case, perhaps these ships mark the arrival of new Automaton aerial gunships, which were signaled in flavor text from a recently completed Major Order. Players are already speculating that these aerial gunships, if genuine, will cause Helldivers even more problems by intermittently firing at the battlefield. That won’t be annoying at all.
This is all part of Helldivers 2’s fascinating Galactic War, a meta narrative steered by Game Master Joel. Amid the push and pull of planets, new Stratagems are made available to players, with the promise of more to come. If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a player who has answered over 100 SOS Beacons as part of a mission to help others.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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Level-5’s Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road Worldwide Beta Test Demo kicked off last week and it’s performing quite well.
The developer behind the game has announced the total downloads have surpassed 500,000 worldwide in just four days, which is certainly a promising start for this upcoming release, due out at some point in 2024.
Hi, everyone! Wynn here again with a very special April 1st version of the Get to Know Our Team interviews. Today we’ll be chatting with—
Me!
You can’t just interrupt the intro. Wait… why are you wearing that ridiculous hat?
They need a way to tell us apart, so why not get in the holiday spirit?
It’s awful. Try something else.
Save me Mike.
Vecna can keep you. Next.
You either die a hero…
Nope that is truly villainous.
I haven’t even assumed my final form!
All right edge lord. Pick something normal.
Fine, this bit has gone on too long anyway.
Perfect. Now I can properly introduce my(our)self(ves)! This is Wynn! The Community, Communications, and Social Media Manager for Xbox Insider Program. How’s it going?
Pretty well. Hopefully some of y’all recognize me by now.
Well for the uninitiated, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Sure thing! Well, back in 1991, two people loved each other very much—
Okay, I think we skip forward a bit.
Fine. I’ll give the spark notes. (Do those even still exist?) I was born and raised in and around Atlanta. I’ve always loved games and gaming. Ever since I was in middle school, I knew that I wanted to work in the games industry. It’s a medium that is so uniquely positioned to tell interesting stories that it has captivated me my whole life.
True. I remember gaming always being there. From beating Mega Man X without boss powers to accidentally erasing mom’s save file on Super Mario World to getting lost in Eorzea and losing thousands of hours in Guitar Hero. It’s helped me through some hard times.
But you’re here now, working for Xbox. How did that happen?
I took a slightly long and arduous road here. I had a full ride to Georgia Tech fully planning on getting a Computer Science degree because that was the closest thing to “video game degree” that existed at a “normal” university at the time. But after a few semesters of classes, I dropped out to go the “starving artist” route. Did a lot of starving, not a lot of art.
I remember that. But I persevered. Worked at GameStop for a few years, some odd jobs here and there. Even took one off of Craigslist that wasn’t a scam. But I think you ended up joining Microsoft in 2013, is that right?
Yup! Started in the retail stores as a holiday hire. Converted to full-time Product Advisor at a brand-new store a few months later.
Shout out Store 0056!
That’s where I worked for around four years. Eventually became a technician and then ran the front of house service desk for that entire store until I left. I took a more traditional IT role as a temp job before being laid off as that company axed almost every single non-full-time employee.
A dark time. How’d you make it back to Microsoft?
My old manager at the retail stores actually moved into a sales organization and had an opening on her team. Which is the story of how I packed up my entire life and drove a U-Haul 26 hours straight from Atlanta to Fargo.
A climate, not to mention culture whiplash, to be sure.
You know, I didn’t mind the cold so much. Plus, not sitting in traffic for 90 minutes every day to get to work was an incredible blessing. The worst part was the food. It’s a culinary wasteland up there. Only like three restaurants in the whole city that I would eat at ever again.
Shout out Rustica, Plaza Azteca, and Pounds.
So how long did you stay in sales?
Around two and half years in Fargo and then moved to Charlotte to be closer to family and friends for another two years before getting caught up in another round of layoffs.
Yikes. Almost five years to the day of the previous one, yeah?
Funny how life is cyclical like that isn’t it? But I’m a firm believer that everything happens for reason, even if you have to retroactively apply that reasoning. In different circumstances, I’m not sure I would’ve been in a place to take this position.
Especially true since these first seven months working here have been the most enjoyable and fulling work I’ve done in my time at Microsoft.
Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Right. Cause you did say it.
So, you’ve been at Microsoft over a decade, here almost a year, what’s your favorite moment so far.
Hmm. I’ve done a ton of really cool stuff since joining. Some highlights include hosting a 100+ person soccer gaming tournament out of my store with a true “round robin” format. It took like 9 hours to finish, and people flew out from all over the US. Then there was a bunch of work I did with achievements for like three years. Can’t really go into specifics, but that was a top moment personally.
Ahh yes. Achievements. My one true gaming love.
Oh! A small plug for something happening right now. My favorite thing that’s launched—keyword launched—is the pizza survey we’re doing right now. It was a silly idea that everyone was on board with, and I’ve been pretty pleased with the results so far.
Yes, everyone who has been asking why the survey results have changed will be pleased to know that they’ll be returning to normal after this week.
For now.
Whoa!
I’m not sure how jump scares come across in text, but I went for it.
Well, speaking of something recent, is there anything you’re working on that you can tell the Xbox Insiders about.
Well, we’ve been working on the release notes migration, which there should be a bigger announcement of later this week / next week. There’s a new Community Update coming out tomorrow, but really anything else I say here won’t be believed because of the day.
Yeah, we could say anything we want here, and no one will know the difference.
Exactly. Let’s tell them about the—
Uhh, Wynn? You cut out there.
*static*
You there?
Whoa. Sorry about that. There was this bright flash of light and I think my camera knocked out.
What were we talking about?
Uhh… you know what? Let’s move on to the rapid-fire questions.
What’s a game that has impacted your life the most?
Ah! I finally get to tell everyone that I purposefully phrased this question this way because I don’t believe in “favorite” media.
Yes, this seems like an okay time to wax philosophic.
So, there’s too much media out there. Too many different genres, variations, etc. having an “all-time” favorite just means you haven’t experienced your new favorite yet. What’s infinitely more interesting is how media impacts your life. The song that brings back memories of your first kiss, the movie that makes you tear up because you watched it with someone who has passed on. Those are the moments that are truly special.
Despite the pretention, I am forced to agree.
To answer the question itself, I mentioned it earlier in passing, but I’ve beat Mega Man X more than a hundred times, which is saying something since I’m generally not someone who replays games. The most recent game that had a profound impact on me was Outer Wilds. That entire experience hit me at a point where the scope, message, and melancholy all wrapped up into a deeply personal moment for me.
Can’t forget about Eternal Sonata either. The Heaven’s Mirror flowers in particular are something inextricably tied to my life as my best friend passed away at the same time those bloom in the game.
Plus, it’s a truly magnificent game that deals with the idea of “someone’s last moments” in a unique and interesting way.
Okay, I get that part of the joke of this interview is that it’s mostly serious, but we’re almost out of time.
But isn’t time a flat circle?
Okay, Rust. That’s a great segue.
Since you don’t re-watch stuff often, do you have any favorite TV shows?
Well, I do think the first season of True Detective is a near perfect show. But I generally veered more sitcom. Community, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Cougar Town. All peak television. I also liked the late aughts “dude who isn’t a cop, but has some unique insight” shows like Castle, The Mentalist, and White Collar.
Yeah, I generally like TV shows more than movies, but a few all-timers on that front are School of Rock, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and Inception. I’m trying to remember the last “artsy” movie I watched, so I don’t lose all credibility.
Everything Everywhere All At Once?
Yeah, that’s ticket.
Okay, music. I know you can talk about this for hours, so just hit me with the top bands in each genre.
Weezer (Alternative); Alesana or Chiodos (Post-Hardcore); Streetlight Manifesto (3rd Wave Ska); I See Stars (Electronic Hardcore); Veil of Maya (Djent); In Fear and Faith or Currents (Metalcore); Shadow of Intent or Brand of Sacrifice (Deathcore); Motoi Sakuraba or Yasunori Mitsuda (Video Game Composers); Pepper – (Reggae); Muse (Rock); The Devil Wears Prada (Christian Metalcore Bands From Ohio That Started In The Mid Aughts).
I love that that last genre has at least a dozen entrants. I’ll go ahead and sum up the final question. I’m a huge soccer fan. I played all growing up and I still follow several teams. YNWA. We’re sending off Klopp right. I also read a ton of sci-fi fantasy novels and dabble in writing them myself.
No self-promo!
Fine, fine. Okay, let’s wrap this one up.
Any final thoughts for the community?
First, I just want to say. Hey. Look at us.
Who woulda thought, huh?
Not me. It’s so wild that we’re here and doing this.
So, I’d like to give an enormous thank you to the entire Xbox Insider community. Without all of you I would quite literally be out of a job, and I take that responsibility very seriously. These first several months have been incredible. I know things haven’t necessarily moved quite at the pace I would’ve liked them to, but I hope the community knows that changes are being made. There’s not a comment on socials that’s been posted since I got here that I haven’t read.
Exactly. It’s hard to state in words some of this because I know everyone wants to see actions. But if there’s any assurance to be had, it’s hopefully the knowledge that things are being worked on.
Hopefully there’ll be more to share in the near future!
Okay, I’m checking this word count and I won’t let my own interview be the longest, so that’s all for now folks!
Xbox Insiders, be sure to be on the lookout for more content all throughout February including more interviews from the team, a trip down memory lane, and so much more. All of our 10th Anniversary content can be found on our Hub Page.
It’s hard to overstate how eagerly Hollow Knight fans have been awaiting its sequel, Silksong, five years after it was initially announced. And now, they got a little bit of hope, in the form of an Xbox Store page.
Today, with little fanfare, Hollow Knight: Silksong got an official listing on Microsoft’s website. There’s no release date, no trailer, no pre-orders, or anything of that sort outside of wishlisting, but it’s something, right? Right?
Oh, and one more catch: it just so happens to be April Fools Day, which has some fans treating the mysterious listing with a healthy amount of skepticism.
“Today I will not be fooled by SilkSong release dates. I will not be fooled by SilkSong announcements of any kind,” wrote Twitch Director of Community Marketing & Production Merry Kish on X/Twitter. “My head is clear and my heart is open you cannot destroy me I have prepared my soul for today you rat bastards.”
Today I will not be fooled by SilkSong release dates. I will not be fooled by SilkSong announcements of any kind. My head is clear and my heart is open you cannot destroy me I have prepared my soul for today you rat bastards.
To be clear, there’s no indication that this is some kind of cruel April Fools Day joke by developer Team Cherry or Microsoft, but it also doesn’t tell us a whole lot about where the highly anticipated sequel is. A game can be listed on the Xbox store for any number of reasons, including routine backend work, and some listings go up well in advance of release. Silksong has also had listings on several other stores for some time now, including PSN and the Nintendo eShop.
But with a game as anticipated as Silksong, any crumb of information will spur all kinds of speculation. Even Xbox Portfolio’s Senior Content Planning Manager Nick Zuclich ever-so-innocently highlighted the listing on his own X/Twitter:
Whatever that listing may or may not mean, Hollow Knight fans have no idea how know how to feel about all this, especially because of the dubious timing. As @Shayy_TV on X/Twitter puts it: “team cherry deciding to put the store pages up for silksong on april 1st is the ultimate chad move”
team cherry deciding to put the store pages up for silksong on april 1st is the ultimate chad move
The r/HollowKnight subreddit was also hesitant to get their hopes up, with u/Plopop87 writing, “I love how the Internet is wrapped in so many layers of irony today that no one can tell whether people are just falling for jokes or feeding into them.”
As some pointed out on both Reddit and X/Twitter, the Xbox page does have an ESRB rating (Everyone +10), leading to speculation that it at least must be in some sort of playable state. However, it’s worth noting that, per the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s website, “ESRB raters do not play through games during the rating process for a variety of reasons,” instead relying on disclosures from the developer.
It’s little wonder that fans are so hungry for information more than five years after Silksong was first announced on February 14, 2019. The sequel was shown off during a June 2022 Xbox-Bethesda Showcase, seemingly confirming that it would be arriving in the following year (it obviously didn’t). In May 2023, Team Cherry said it had planned to release in the first half of 2023, but that it would be delayed.
“We’re excited by how the game is shaping up, and it’s gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can,” Team Cherry’s marketing and publishing lead Matthew Griffin said at the time.
Obviously, you don’t get a sequel this anticipated without a beloved predecessor. Hollow Knight was a hit among fans and critics alike following its 2018, with IGN writing in our 9.4/10 review that its “rich world and incredible depth of content will make you want to explore its caves for dozens of hours.”
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
