Helldivers 2 weapon customization guide: How to level up and upgrade weapons

The enemy threat has never been more real, and to make the most out of your arsenal, Super Earth deployed a weapon customization system for you to upgrade weapons in Helldivers 2 by adding attachments and improving their stats.

While weapon customization is fairly straightforward in Helldivers 2, there are a couple of things you should be aware of.

How to customize weapons in Helldivers 2

To customize weapons in Helldivers 2, head straight to the Armory. Apart from equipping weapons, you can customize them with sights, underbarrels, muzzles, magazines, and other attachments. There’s also a separate tab with patterns/camos to change the weapon’s look.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Weapon customization is limited to primary weapons.
• Available attachment types (mags, muzzles, etc.) depend on the weapon.
• Collaboration weapons, like the StA-52 Assault Rifle, don’t have customization options.

After you find several good attachment loadouts for your favorite rifle, you can save them in configs. Each weapon has three editable configs and one default config (one with the “-” symbol). You can choose between these configs when editing your loadout in the Hellpod, but you can’t edit individual attachments.

All weapon stats in Helldivers 2 and what they do

Attachments affect a range of new weapon stats in Helldivers 2. Apart from regular damage, capacity, recoil, and fire rate, there are a few more detailed stats. Finding a good balance or leaning into one area of the gun more than the other is what you can try to do with the customization system.

Here are all the weapon customization stats and what they do:

• Horizontal Recoil: Horizontal spread when firing.
• Vertical Recoil: Vertical spread when firing.
• Sway: Crosshair sway when aiming.
• Ergonomics: Weapon handling, like ADS and changing speeds.
• Capacity: Magazine capacity.
• Magazines: Maximum number of carriable magazines.
• Reload Time: Reload speed.

In the bottom right of the weapon customization screen, there’s also a recoil sim. It shows with yellow dots how the spread will behave when firing the weapon, followed by the reload, for you to see how long it takes to reload the gun.

How to level up weapons in Helldivers 2

Every weapon has a level, starting at level one. Leveling up the weapon by using it in missions unlocks new attachments and patterns. To level up weapons, bring them into missions and complete them as usual. Complete main objectives, side objectives, and just kill stuff.

One thing to note is that completed missions award more XP towards the weapon level than failed ones, so always focus on getting the objective done. If you’re struggling, farming lower-difficulty missions might be a better option.