Helldivers 2 announces a massive new update: The Escalation of Freedom, bringing over 3 new enemy types, fresh objectives, a new difficulty, and votekick protection

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Games announced earlier this year that it'd be slowing down its update cadence to deliver bigger, beefier patches—and they certainly meant it.

Announced earlier today, The Escalation of Freedom is a major free update arriving next month that'll be bringing new enemies, mission objectives, a fresh biome, an even harder difficulty, and a clever take on votekick protection.

First up, the big bads: The Terminids have been given the Impaler, a truly accursed batch of giant tentacles that'll erupt from the ground to cut you off—though you can still knock 'em down if you'd like. There's also the Spore Charger, a massive version of the bug's fearsome tanks that're accompanied by their own smoke cloud, alongside bigger and badder Brood Commanders.

The Automatons'll get new toys, too. We only get to see one of them, but they have other «surprises» in store according to the game's official blog—I'm not sure what can get worse than a giant tank with an artillery battery strapped to the top of it, but I'm keen to find out.

As if the existence of these new terrors wasn't enough to fill your standard-issue helmet with tears, there's also going to be a new difficulty level: Super Helldive, where these horrors will presumably take centre-stage.

When it comes to the missions themselves, there's a new spooky swamp biome, larger outposts to siege, and additional objectives such as one where you steal a crying baby. I mean democratise a soulless Terminid larva that's crying, drawing bugs to your position. There's also an acid storm, which'll reduce both your and your enemy's armour.

The video above promises that this isn't the full gauntlet of features in the update, though one thing mentioned in the blog caught my eye—a change «to mitigate the problem of grief kicking in Helldivers 2.»

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Simply put, you'll still be able to kick players willy-nilly—however,