Helldivers 2 devs weren't kidding about huge buffs coming this month – the Railgun is about to utterly destroy large enemies: "We kind of quadrupled that"

Helldivers 2
(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

The latest sneak peek of the big Helldivers 2 September 17 update brings good and glorious news for all Railgun enthusiasts. Developer Arrowhead "kind of quadrupled" its heavy-slaying Durable damage and jacked up its overcharge damage bonus, potentially taking us straight back to the armor-piercing days of old. 

Helldivers 2 CCO Johan Pilestedt and design director Niklas Malmborg discussed the Railgun in a new short video previewing the upcoming update. "The Railgun's damage will get a boost too! Durable damage will be increased from 60 to 225 and fully overcharging damage will be increased from 150% to 250%," the attached written tweet explains. 

"What have we done to the railgun?" Pilestedt asks.

"We booted it up again," Malmborg answers, seemingly acknowledging that the gun had largely fallen out of fashion after some sizable, arguably not entirely undeserved nerfs. 

"The Railgun does a lot of damage to normal enemies," Malmborg continues. "It didn't do that much to very large enemies. So we kind of quadrupled that from 60 to 225 in Durable damage. Just in safe mode, it will be stronger. Normally if you charge it up close to full, you did 50% more damage. Now you deal 150% more."

Better still, Pilestedt and Malmborg confirmed the gun will still have the same charge time. It truly does seem like a massive, no-strings-attached buff – the first of many to come, if Arrowhead's increasingly unhinged rhetoric is any indication. 

The Flamethrower, which recently reignited embers of balance discourse, is due for its own massive buff come September 17. This is all positioned as part of Arrowhead's push to "make the game more fun" after a "disconnect" formed between what the devs and players were pushing for. 

Pilestedt says "the balance/realism can suck it" for one bug that's probably not "worth fixing due to how hilarious it is."

Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.