Helldivers 2 Difficulty Scaling Explained

Learn everything there is to know about Helldivers 2 Difficulty Scaling.

Helldivers 2 is out now for PlayStation 5 and Steam and is one of the pleasant surprise hits of the year. After Pokemon with Guns and what if Dark Souls was Valheim we got another entry in the esteemed “Friendship is on trial until further notice” -genre. It has been a while since we had an honest-to-good coop shooter with that level of quality and hype behind it.

The sequel to Helldivers is full of surprises and mechanics the community has yet to figure out. One of the bigger mysteries we see pop up time and time again is whether the mission difficulty scales with the number of players. And after some extensive testing, we’d like to present our findings.

Helldivers 2 Difficulty Scaling – Does the difficulty scale with players?

Generally, the number of players does not affect the difficulty of Helldivers 2. The only factor here is the actual mission difficulty which will set the pool of enemies you’ll be facing as well as the number and types of objectives you have to complete.

On higher difficulty levels, Coop becomes a necessity there is no way around it. Enemy counts become so large that a single player won’t be able to clear out the neverending hordes of bugs or robots. But we’d like to see you try regardless. If you want to find out more about difficulty levels, you can check out our guide to the different difficulty levels here.

There are some real advantages to playing the game on higher difficulty levels though, especially in coop. The rewards of more or the premium currency, more experience points, and upgrade materials are hard to pass up.

And once the matchmaking is working as intended (this joke will hopefully age badly) you’ll be able to join fellow Helldivers from all across the globe to bring Managed Democracy and Freedom to those pesky invaders that try to steal it from you.

This wraps up everything you need to know about Difficulty Scaling in Helldivers 2, for more on Arrow Head Studio’s Starship Trooper simulator check out our other guides. Learn how to fight those Bugs, which Guard Dog is truly the best, and everything you need to know about that glorious Super Citizen Status.