The highest Helldivers 2 difficulties can be absolutely brutal, with hordes of enemies of all shapes and sizes, but you can also get some of the best possible rewards and resources. With so many difficulty options to choose from in Helldivers 2, it's hard to know how much they differ, and which level is the most worthwhile when it comes to rewards. To help you understand the levels of play, I've explained the major differences between all the Helldivers 2 difficulty levels below.
Every difficulty level in Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 features ten unlockable difficulty levels, each ramping up the challenge from the last with greater numbers of enemies, objectives, but also rewards – more XP, Requisition Slips, Medals, and Samples await with each step up the difficulty ladder. Unlocking each difficulty level requires you to complete an entire operation at the previous level, so to unlock Extreme, you need to play an entire operation on Hard, for example.
When you open the galaxy map and select a planet to fight on, you can set the difficulty at the bottom of your screen, which will then show you a selection of operations and missions-in-progress on the planet for that difficulty. You can also select the Quickplay option to immediately join a mission at that challenge level.
Here's how each difficulty works, from Trivial all the way up to Helldive:
Helldivers 2 Trivial difficulty
The easiest difficulty meant for learning the absolute basics of Helldivers 2. Operations consist of one mission.
- Objectives: Primary objectives (orange map icons)
- Enemy presence: Small enemy patrols
- Rewards and loot: 1 Medal per successful mission. Green Common Samples available.
- Modifiers: None
Helldivers 2 Easy difficulty
A small step up from Trivial that introduces extra core mechanics.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Allied Tactical Objectives (optional objectives with blue map icons that provide extra support to your team or relate to Super Earth directly. Includes Radar Towers, SEAF Artillery, Illegal Broadcast Towers, Rogue Research Labs, and Escape Pods)
- Enemy presence: Small enemy patrols, Light Outposts (Terminid Nests and Automaton Fabricators)
- Rewards and loot: 2 Medals per successful mission. Common Samples available.
- Modifiers: None
Helldivers 2 Medium difficulty
This is the last of the beginner difficulties and is quite a big step up, introducing tougher enemy types with heavy armor. Operations now consist of two missions and one of them can be a shorter Blitz mission.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Allied Tactical Objectives, Secondary Objectives (One optional Tactical Objective is permanently marked on your map with a blue icon)
- Enemy presence: Small enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts
- Rewards and loot: 2 Medals for first mission, 4 Medals for second mission. Common Samples available.
- Modifiers: None
Helldivers 2 Challenging difficulty
Challenging is where Helldivers 2 really starts to ramp up the difficulty, representing the first of the moderate difficulty levels. From here on, playing Helldivers 2 solo becomes noticeably harder.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, Allied Tactical Objectives, Enemy Tactical Objectives (optional objectives, also marked with blue icons, that revolve around destroying enemy assets. Includes things like Terminid Stalker Lairs and Spore Spewers, and Automaton Detector Towers and AA Emplacements)
- Enemy presence: Enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts, Heavy Outposts
- Rewards and loot: 3 Medals for first mission, 5 Medals for second mission. Green Common Samples and orange Rare Samples available.
- Modifiers: None
Helldivers 2 Hard difficulty
Another significant step up, Hard introduces the largest enemies in Helldivers 2 and Operation Modifiers. Operations are now three missions long, with one or two being Blitz missions.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, Allied and Enemy Tactical Objectives
- Enemy presence: Enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, massive enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts, Heavy Outposts
- Rewards and loot: 4 Medals for first mission, 6 Medals for second mission, 8 Medals for third mission. Common and Rare Samples available.
- Modifiers: 1 Operation Modifier (Operation Modifiers add team-wide penalties or gameplay quirks to all missions in an Operation, such as increased Stratagem cooldown times or an obscured map)
Helldivers 2 Extreme difficulty
Little changes in Extreme compared to Hard, aside from extra Tactical Objectives, but this means each mission has more to do in the same amount of time which will really start to test your efficiency.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, even more Allied and Enemy Tactical Objectives
- Enemy presence: Enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, massive enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts, Heavy Outposts
- Rewards and loot: 5 Medals for first mission, 7 Medals for second mission, 9 Medals for third mission. Common and Rare Samples available.
- Modifiers: 1 Operation Modifier
Helldivers 2 Suicide Mission difficulty
This is the point where Helldivers 2 starts to get really hard. Enemies are abundant and relentless in Suicide Mission difficulty, and stealth approaches can be useful for avoiding massive fights. This is also the lowest difficulty that Super Samples become available.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, increased Allied and Enemy Tactical Objectives
- Enemy presence: Large enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, massive enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts, Heavy Outposts
- Rewards and loot: 6 Medals for first mission, 8 Medals for second mission, 10 Medals for third mission. Common, Rare, and Pink Super Uranium Samples available.
- Modifiers: 1 Operation Modifier
Helldivers 2 Impossible difficulty
Only coordinated and experienced players with the best Helldivers 2 builds are getting through these Operations.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, increased Allied and Enemy Tactical Objectives
- Enemy presence: Increased enemy numbers overall, large enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, massive enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts, Heavy Outposts
- Rewards and loot: 7 Medals for first mission, 10 Medals for second mission, 12 Medals for third mission. Common, Rare, and Super Samples available.
- Modifiers: 2 Operation Modifiers
Helldivers 2 Helldive difficulty
The fight for Super Earth at its absolute hardest. There's nothing new mechanically compared to Impossible, but enemies are almost everywhere, and heavily armored and massive enemies are common. Good luck, Helldivers.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, increased Allied and Enemy Tactical Objectives
- Enemy presence: Increased enemy numbers overall, large enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, massive enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts, Heavy Outposts
- Rewards and loot: 8 Medals for first mission, 11 Medals for second mission, 14 Medals for third mission. Common, Rare, and Super Samples available.
- Modifiers: 2 Operation Modifiers
Helldivers 2 Super Helldive difficulty
The fight for Super Earth at its absolute hardest – though it doesn't feel much harder than Helldive. Enemies are almost everywhere, and heavily armored and massive enemies are common. Good luck, Helldivers.
- Objectives: Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, increased Allied and Enemy Tactical Objectives
- Enemy presence: Increased enemy numbers overall, large enemy patrols, heavily armored enemies, massive enemies, Light Outposts, Medium Outposts, Heavy Outposts, Super Heavy Outposts.
- Rewards and loot: 9 Medals for first mission, 12 Medals for second mission, 15 Medals for third mission. Common, Rare, and Super Samples available. Can also find carriable enemy items that award additional samples if extracted.
- Modifiers: 2 Operation Modifiers
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