Helldivers 2 Update 1.003.000 Adds Illuminate Faction Enemies, New Weapon Customisations & Crash Fixes; Full Patch Notes Listed

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios has kicked off a major new event for the PS5 and PC shooter with the arrival of the Illuminate Faction, which brings fresh enemies to the fold including the Stingray, Crescent Overseer, and more. In addition, the latest update for the game brings a series of new weapon customisations and progression, plus of course a range of key bug fixes that iron out lingering crash bugs. You can read the full details in the Helldivers 2 update 1.003.000 patch notes.

First released in February 2024, Helldivers 2 has become one of the most successful live service games on PS5 to date, and is continuously receiving quality-of-life improvements and new content via Arrowhead Games. Looking ahead, the Masters of Ceremony Warbond is set to arrive on May 15.

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Overview

• New Illuminate faction enemies
• New Weapon Customizations and Progression
• Crash fixes
• Weapon fixes
• Miscellaneous fixes

Major Update

Weapon Customization

Gear up, Helldivers—your arsenal just got personal!

With the new Weapon Customization system, you can now tailor your favorite weapons to match your combat style and preferences once you’ve progressed and unlocked different attachments. Whether it’s tweaking sights for precision, changing color patterns, adjusting magazines for ammo capacity, muzzles to optimize weapon performance characteristics or adjusting underbarrels for the handling you want, you’re in command of how your weaponry performs on the battlefield.

Tinker in the menu, customize your specific weapon configs and switch between them during the mission loadout sequence.

It’s time to fight for Super Earth with weapons that are truly yours!

We are aware of a bug that prevents players from canceling customization with a controller. We have a fix identified and prepared for our next hotfix. In the meantime, you can save the customization and then go in and do it again.

New Illuminate Enemies

Stingray:

Jetfighters that provide Illuminate support from the sky, targeting Helldivers and lining up devastating strafing runs.

Crescent Overseer:

Has the ability to lay barrages on Helldivers in cover.

Fleshmob:

A failed Illuminate experiment made up of Voteless parts turned into a brute battlefield force that the Helldivers must work hard to destroy.

Balancing

Weapon balances:

• Spread
• Drag
• Sway
• Melee weapons stamina cost
• Shrapnel spawning
• Fire damage

Spread:

Spread refers to how much a projectile veers from the point you’re aiming at when you fire. This rebalance primarily targets SMGs and sidearms, which previously had noticeably higher spread values. We’ve reviewed all primary, sidearm, and support weapons with the intent to significantly reduce spread overall, as it didn’t make much sense for these specific weapons to have such high inaccuracy.

Drag:

Drag determines how quickly a projectile loses speed over distance, affecting its damage. We’ve increased drag for pistol-caliber ammunition (used in SMGs and some sidearms) to better represent its shorter, wider projectile compared to rifle rounds. As a result, these weapons will be slightly less effective at longer ranges.

Sway:

Sway refers to how much the weapon’s aim shifts, influenced by factors like movement and stance. It represents the weapon’s inertia and stability—so weapons with lower ergonomics will experience less sway, while those with higher ergonomics will have more. Sidearms will naturally have more sway than primaries due to the lack of support features like stocks. This balance patch specifically focuses on adjusting sway for primaries and sidearms.

Stamina Cost:

All melee weapons now consume less stamina when attacking, reducing the cost from 0.1 to 0.05. This change makes melee combat less punishing and allows for easier repositioning between strikes. The affected weapons include the CQC-30 Stun Baton, CQC-19 Stun Lance, CQC-5 Combat Hatchet, and the Entrenchment Tool.

Shrapnel spawning:

With this update, shrapnel will now always spawn in a full 360-degree spread, regardless of where the explosion occurs. This means weapons like the R-36 Eruptor will now more reliably hit the intended target with their shrapnel.

In addition, we’ve adjusted shrapnel performance against armor. Shrapnel now has reduced effectiveness at poor impact angles, to reflect its lack of design for armor penetration in such situations.

These shrapnel balance changes will impact the following weapons:

• R-36 Eruptor
• G-6 Frag Grenade
• AC-8 Autocannon

Balance Changes:

Armor Penetration decreased on shrapnel projectiles from 3-3-3-0 to 3-3-2-0

• Each of these numbers represent an angle threshold, which means we’ve reduced the AP value of 3 to 2 in the last range where a shrapnel projectile would penetrate an enemy.

Frag Grenade

• Increased Shrapnel spawned from 30 to 35

Autocannon Flak

• Increased Shrapnel spawned from 25 to 30

Fire and Flamethrowers:

This update aims to better balance fire damage between direct hits (like those from flamethrowers) and burn effects over time, while also introducing scaling of fire damage depending on the size of the enemy. Previously, burn damage didn’t scale well against larger enemies, making putting them on fire feel less effective in those encounters.

Now, the larger the enemy, the more damage they take while burning. However, bigger enemies will also be slightly more resistant to ignition. Additionally, direct fire damage now scales with enemy size—so large enemies like Chargers will still take roughly the same damage as before, while smaller enemies will take slightly less.

We have also increased the magazine capacity of the FLAM-66 Torcher and the FLAM-40 Flamethrower because putting stuff on fire is fun!

Damage:

• • Burning damage now scales with enemy size and will do more damage over time to larger enemies
  • Fire direct damage also scales with enemy size. The base damage of direct fire hits has been lowered as compensation. This means that large enemies will take roughly the same amount of damage as before, while smaller enemies will take slightly less
• Time to ignite:
  • Larger enemies now take longer to ignite
  • Robotic enemies are harder to set on fire than organic ones
  • Incendiary Ammunition and Lasers are now less effective at igniting enemies, but once they do, the resulting burn damage is more impactful thanks to the new scaling system
• The Helldiver:
  • The Helldiver is now slightly more resistant to being set on fire
  • Burn damage taken by the Helldiver remains unchanged
• Primary weapons
• AR-23 Liberator
  • Spread decreased from 4 to 2
• AR-23P Liberator Penetrator
  • Starting magazines increased from 5 to 6
  • Max spare magazines increased from 7 to 8
• AR-23C Liberator Concussive
  • Spread decreased from 24 to 4
• StA-52 Assault Rifle
  • Spread decreased from 4 to 2
• AR-23A Liberator Carbine
  • Spread decreased from 4 to 3
• AR-61 Tenderizer
  • Spread decreased from 4 to 1
• SMG-37 Defender
  • Spread decreased from 20 to 5
  • Drag increased from 0.3 to 0.6
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• SMG-72 Pummeler
  • Spread decreased from 20 to 5
  • Drag increased from 0.3 to 0.6
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• MP-98 Knight
  • Spread decreased from 25 to 5
  • Drag increased from 0.3 to 0.6
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• StA-11 SMG
  • Spread decreased from 25 to 5
  • Drag increased from 0.3 to 0.6
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• SMG-32 Reprimand
  • Spread decreased from 40 to 5
  • Drag increased from 0.3 to 0.6
• JAR-5 Dominator
  • Sway decreased from 1 to 0.8
• R-63CS Diligence Counter Sniper
  • Sway decreased from 1 to 0.8
• FLAM-66 Torcher
  • Magazine capacity increased by 25%
• R-36 Eruptor
  • Spread decreased from 10 to 5
  • Ergonomics increased from -14 to 25
  • Sway decreased from 1 to 0.8
  • Fire rate increased from 25 to 32
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to cancel the Eruptor’s round cycling animation, effectively increasing its fire rate
• The intent with these changes:
  • The improvements made to the Eruptor are designed to compensate for the removal of the reload exploit, ensuring that its overall power remains steady or even improved
• PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle
  • Drag decreased from 1.5 → 0.1
  • Is now categorized as an energy weapon in the loadout menu
• The changes to drag means it wont lose speed and damage as it travels through the air and does the damage you would expect it to do
• Sidearm Weapons
• GP-31 Ultimatum
  • Is now affected by the Hellpod Optimization Booster
  • Explosion damage increased from 1000 to 2000
  • Explosion inner radius decreased from 4 to 2 m
  • Projectile damage decreased from 3500 to 1000
  • Demolition strength decreased from 50 to 40
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.3
• The intent with these changes:
  • We want to maintain the Ultimatum’s overall power level while rebalancing how that power is delivered—shifting more of the damage from the projectile itself to the explosion. Previously, the Ultimatum behaved more like a massive kinetic projectile (similar to the 380mm shell) because of its high projectile damage and relatively weaker explosion. This update reinforces its intended identity as a powerful explosive weapon, emphasizing high explosive damage over impact force
  • Most heavy enemies will now die from a close hit instead of a direct hit, except for the Factory Strider
  • Additionally, due to its reduced demolition strength, the Ultimatum will no longer destroy Stratagem Jammer Objectives or landed Illuminate Warp Ships through their shields. However, the dropships now have health, allowing the Ultimatum to destroy them once the shield is down
• P-2 Peacemaker
  • Decreased Spread from 30 to 10
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• P-19 Redeemer
  • Decreased Spread from 35 to 10
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• P-113 Verdict
  • Decreased Spread from 30 to 8
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• PLAS-15 Loyalist
  • Decreased Spread from 25 to 10
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• LAS-58 Talon
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• P-72 Crisper
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• GP-31 Grenade Pistol
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• LAS-7 Dagger
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• P-11 Stim Pistol
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.2
• SG-22 Bushwhacker
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.3
• P-4 Senator
  • Decreased Spread from 30 to 8
  • Sway increased from 1 to 1.3
• Stratagems
• RS-422 Railgun
  • Decreased Spread from 10 to 0.1
• FLAM-40 Flamethrower
  • Magazine capacity increased by 30%
• Backpacks
• LIFT-850 Jump pack
  • Increased break force on landing to make Helldivers less likely to ragdoll when landing
• Eagles
• Eagle 110mm rockets
  • Stagger strength increased from 35 to 40
  • Increased armor penetration in certain angles
• Enemies
• Automatons
  • Bunker Turret
  • Spread increased from 20 to 50
• Conflagration Devastator
  • Reduced damage per pellet
  • More pellets are now required to hit you to put you on fire
• Automaton Gunship
  • Body armor value reduced from 4 to 3
  • Main body health increased to 950 from 700
  • Now shoots more and the aim is slightly more accurate
• Bulk Fabricator
  • Health increased from 1500 to 5000
• Conscripts
  • There was a bug where the Conscripts reloaded after every shot, it’s now been fixed so they only reload when they’re actually out of ammo
• Terminids
• Spore Spewers
  • Demolition level decreased from 60 to 50, making it easier to kill with heavy ordnance weapons
• Illuminates
  • Landed Warp Ships
  • Will now be easier to kill with Anti-Tank weaponry once the shields are down
• Fixes
  Crash Fixes, Hangs and Soft-locks:
  • Fixed a crash which could occur when returning to your Super Destroyer from a host parked at a planet with the Democracy Space Station in orbit, if the Democracy Space Station had just moved to a new planet
  • Fixed a crash when writing a specific sequence of text in the chat
  • Fixed a crash that could occur after partially destroying an Automaton convoy
  • Fixed crash when attempting to drop into a mission on Tien Kwan
• Weapons and Stratagems
  • The SMG-37 Defender does not trigger the anti tank mines anymore
  • Improved the effectiveness of flashlight attachments
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the camera to be stuck in Aim Down Sights (ADS) mode when discarding the MLS-4X Commando when utilizing that camera mode
  • Cancelling laser weapon reloads no longer gives them infinite ammo
• Miscellaneous Fixes
  • Fixed an issue with intermittent flickering of distant visual effects
  • Fixed an issue where the FRV and Helldivers embarked in it would get covered in blood after a Helldiver would attack the FRV from any passenger seat
  • Spore Scavengers can now properly attack
  • Vehicles now correctly show the appropriate enemy blood colors
  • Lowered the target node for the Illuminate tesla tower so that the StA-X3 W.A.S.P. Launcher can properly hit it
  • No longer shows the reconnect popup if the host leaves while on the Destroyer
  • Fixed an issue that resulted in some cases where the momentum could get reset at the end of moving emotes
  • Sample containers can now be properly pinged again
  • Corrected misaligned logo of the Borderline Justice Warbond
  • Fixed an issue with the illuminate Cognitive Disruptor not turning off correctly for hot joining players
  • Decreased a big hitch that could occur during the dropdown sequence
  • The game is now showing the correct amount of total samples on missions
  • Fixed a bug that caused held stratagems to be stuck in Helldivers hands after taking fall damage
  • Performance improvement in the particle subsystem

[Source – Helldivers 2 Patch Notes]