Helldivers 2 lead tries to debunk weapon meta, but players want to know the hidden stats

The battle against the Automatons and Terminids isn’t the only one heating up in Helldivers 2 recently. The community’s divided between a hardcore meta-oriented crowd and those pioneering a casual mentality. Today, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt announced support for the latter, telling players to “use the [weapon] you like.”

In his attempt to downplay the current meta, he revealed guns in Helldivers 2 have “maybe 50 stats in total,” despite only four being visible in-game. His point was that comparisons utilizing those four stats were meaningless, as they function more as “guidelines” than a meaningful indication of a weapon’s strength versus its contemporaries. However, this has only led some players to demand the hidden stats be made available too, and others even dismissed the argument outright.

Multiple replies to the original post highlight this, with requests for Arrowhead to “implement all the stats,” most likely through an advanced information tab. Still, that wouldn’t solve the inherent disconnect between the two warring factions in the playerbase. Regardless of stats, the SG-225 Breaker has become an immediate go-to pick for a lot of Helldivers, with many convinced other guns can’t compete based on the comments stating the shotgun “outshines basically all of them.“

When the discussion moved to Reddit, the majority of players were supportive of the message to use what you like, but still saw the post as something of an “odd take.”

“Of course we are going to rely on the stats the game shows us to decide what weapon is most efficient,” read one comment, with another noting the current suite of available stats “feel misleading and useless.” If Arrowhead’s goal is to promote gun and build diversity, de-mystifying the numbers more could lead to an even narrower definition of what’s good. But when players feel the limited information they’re permitted to peruse doesn’t give an accurate indication of a gun’s functionality, more needs to be done to make the information meaningful.

Regardless of what the stats do or don’t show, the reality is some players at the higher levels of difficulty are getting kicked from lobbies if they aren’t rocking what’s considered “meta”—items such as the Breaker shotgun and the Railgun Stratagem. Even with Pilestedt’s seal of approval for those who want to break free of those chains and rely more on feel, a balance pass might be needed for the more stubborn elements of the playerbase to loosen up their attitude toward the loadouts of their squadmates.