If you want more of a challenge in Helldivers 2, then let us show you how you can change the difficulty setting.
Helldivers 2 has a variety of difficulty settings that you can change as you please. That is, if you are the host setting up a mission and all of your squad is dropping in from your ship.
Of course, you have to unlock a handful of them. And we'll walk you through just how to do that, along with how to make your time against the Terminids and Automatons either easier or harder.
How you can change the difficulty setting in Helldivers 2
As previously mentioned, you need to be the host for your squad. That means you invite your friends or allow strangers to join you through the quickplay option.
Then you can follow these easy steps to change the difficulty in Helldivers 2 before you begin a mission:
- Load into Helldivers 2 and arrive on your ship
- Walk to the Galactic War table and interact with it
- Navigate through the available difficulty levels shown at the bottom of the screen (Q and E on PC)
- Select a sector, planet, operation, and mission at the table
- Enter your Hellpod to confirm the mission and its difficulty level in Helldivers 2
All difficulty levels in Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 has nine total difficulty settings, ranging from Trivial to Helldive. Each one modifies the amount of enemies, side objectives, and overall horror of the battlefield that you drop into. Here's each one and the modifiers it brings:
Difficulty | Modifiers |
Trivial | - Primary Objectives - Enemy Patrols |
Easy | - Allied Tactical Objectives - Light Outposts |
Medium | - Secondary Objectives - Medium Outposts - Heavily Armored Enemies |
Challenging | - Enemy Tactical Objectives - Heavy Outposts - Heavily Armored Enemies |
Hard | - Operation Modifiers - Massive Enemies - Heavily Armored Enemies |
Extreme | - Tactical Objectives Increase - Massive Enemies - Heavily Armored Enemies |
Suicide Mission | - Tactical Objectives Increase - Massive Enemies - Heavily Armored Enemies |
Impossible | - Increased Enemy Presence - Multiple Operation Modifiers - Heavily Armored Enemies |
Helldive | - Increased Enemy Presence - Multiple Operation Modifiers - Heavily Armored Enemies |
How to unlock new difficulties
If you only have the first handful of difficulty levels available in Helldivers 2, you need to unlock the others. It's super simple on how to do so.
You just have to complete a mission on the difficulty level prior. For example, to unlock the hardest setting of Helldive, you need to successfully complete a Helldivers 2 mission on Impossible.
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