How to fix difficulty levels not unlocking in Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 features a variety of mission difficulties for you to unlock, making the enemies stronger and the mission rewards even better. Some players, however, have encountered issues with difficulty levels not unlocking.

You traditionally unlock a new difficulty level by completing the highest tier with a group or by yourself. After you complete it, the next one unlocks, and you can challenge yourself with new enemies and additional swarms. As many Helldivers 2 players have reported, though, these difficulty levels are not unlocking, and they don’t become available. The developers are actively working on a good way to fix this and trying to figure out the source of the issue.

Why are difficulty levels not unlocking in Helldivers 2?

Right now, the developers for Helldivers 2 are working on a fix for players not being able to unlock higher-difficulty missions. The way this came about seemed to happen whenever players attempted to complete a series on their current highest mission, and then the tier above it would not unlock. You should only need to clear one mission before unlocking the next one.

But the development team has shared a good workaround for this issue. If a player on your team can unlock these higher missions, have them become the party lead and join their squad in Helldivers 2. A player can still choose these more challenging missions during their mission selection and load them up for everyone. A player who cannot unlock them won’t be able to launch them if they’re the party lead and do it from their ship, so check with your team to see who can unlock the most challenging missions, earning more samples and rewards.

This does require a good amount of communication with everyone in your Helldivers 2 squad. You might need to all load up in your ships, check who can access the most challenging missions, and then join that person. Unfortunately for solo players, this only works if you team up with squads who can do these missions. For example, I do not have the Suicide Mission difficulty unlocked, so I can’t find random players working on these missions and join them. I can only do this if I join a squad with my friends or join a random group and they choose to conduct these missions later.

Again, the Helldivers 2 development team is aware of this issue. It’s something they’re working on solving and set to work on in a future update. When this happens, the issue shouldn’t be a problem anymore. For now, try to join in on friends in Helldivers 2 who have access to this mission, and you can go from there.