Helldivers 2 Patch 7.2.0 (Oct 20): Easy Anti-Cheat, Scope of Authority Warbond, Shotgun and Sickle Buffs

Helldivers 2 just took one of its most consequential patches in a long while, and most of the conversation is not about guns. On Tuesday, October 20, 2026, Arrowhead Game Studios pushed Devoid of Liberty: 7.2.0, which swaps the game's anti-cheat from GameGuard to Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), launches the sniper-focused Scope of Authority Premium Warbond, and ships a weapon pass that makes several shotguns and two of the collab Legendary weapons hit noticeably harder.

This guide walks through everything in the patch in the order you will actually care about it when you boot the game: what the anti-cheat change means for your PC, Steam Deck and mods, what is in the new Warbond, which weapons got better and by how much, what changed on the stratagem side, and the fixes worth knowing about. All numbers come straight from Arrowhead's 7.2.0 patch notes on Steam, the studio's companion post Changing anti-cheat in HELLDIVERS 2, and the Scope of Authority announcement on the PlayStation Blog. Percentages are our own math on Arrowhead's before and after values, and where we give an opinion on what a change means in practice, we say so.

When Did Helldivers 2 Patch 7.2.0 Release?

Arrowhead posted the 7.2.0 notes on Steam at roughly 4:01 AM CT on Tuesday, October 20. The anti-cheat explainer went up a few hours earlier, around 1:00 AM CT the same morning, and it states plainly that the transition from GameGuard to Easy Anti-Cheat happens "today, October 20th." The Scope of Authority Warbond was announced on October 13 with an October 20 launch date, so the Warbond, the anti-cheat switch and the balance pass all landed together.

If the game asks you to update, let it finish before you try to matchmake. Because the anti-cheat itself changed, an interrupted install is a good candidate for strange launch errors, and a full update plus a restart of Steam is the clean way through.

Why Arrowhead Replaced GameGuard With Easy Anti-Cheat

The anti-cheat post is unusually direct. Arrowhead writes that some players have been bending the rules far enough to affect "pick-up rates" and even "manipulate the war itself," which in Helldivers 2 terms means interfering with the shared Galactic War that every squad contributes to. Cheating in a co-op game is not only a matter of one person ruining their own mission. It drags randoms into broken lobbies and can distort the community-wide campaign the whole game is built around.

The studio lists two concrete steps:

• Additional security measures aimed at cheat mods that have been circulating recently.
• Transitioning from GameGuard to Easy Anti-Cheat on October 20, with extra security tools layered on top to improve its effectiveness.

Asked why the switch happened at all, Arrowhead says its GameGuard implementation "wasn't as effective as it could have been." It describes EAC as an industry standard used in over 200 games. Anyone who remembers the Helldivers 2 launch period will recognize that GameGuard was a frequent source of complaints about performance and compatibility, so moving to a widely supported solution is the kind of change many PC players asked for long ago.

Does Easy Anti-Cheat Break Helldivers 2 on Steam Deck or Linux?

According to Arrowhead, no. The FAQ in the anti-cheat post answers this directly: if you play on Steam Deck or Linux, you can still play, and compatibility "remains unchanged." That matters, because EAC integrations on other games have historically been a sore spot for Linux players when developers did not enable the Proton-compatible path. Arrowhead is putting its answer on the record here.

The same FAQ also confirms that the change imposes no new hardware requirements. If your PC ran Helldivers 2 yesterday, nothing in the anti-cheat switch is supposed to stop it today. For the official minimum specs, Arrowhead points to its support site.

If you do hit a problem on Deck or Linux after updating, the sensible first steps are the boring ones: confirm the update fully installed, restart the device, and if it still fails, contact Arrowhead's support on Zendesk with your exact error so it can be tracked. The studio explicitly invites reports through that channel.

What Happens to Helldivers 2 Mods After 7.2.0

This is the part that has the community talking. Arrowhead's post says it appreciates the creativity behind cosmetic and non-gameplay mods, but it wants to protect players from modifications "that create unfair advantages or negatively impact others." The practical consequences it lists:

• Some mods may no longer function, especially the types that affect the experience of other players.
• Some non-malicious cosmetic mods may need updates from their individual creators to keep working.
• Arrowhead will not tell you which mods are safe. Using mods remains at your own discretion.

If a cosmetic mod you rely on stopped loading, the expectation from Arrowhead is that the mod author updates it. If you believe EAC or another system is blocking a harmless mod or unrelated software, the studio asks you to report it through its official support. Our read: treat any mod as unverified until its creator confirms it works with the new build, and do not risk an account you care about on a tool that alters gameplay for the rest of your squad. The whole point of this patch is to catch that category.

Scope of Authority Premium Warbond: Everything Included

Alongside the security changes, the Scope of Authority Premium Warbond is now available. Arrowhead pitches it as a long-range and clandestine combat kit, and the contents back that up. Per the announcement, unlocking it requires the base game, Super Credits, and game progression. Arrowhead's post does not list a Super Credit price, so check the in-game store before you commit.

How the Stationary Shroud Passive Works

Both armors carry Stationary Shroud, which Arrowhead says reduces weapon sway and detection range while you are crouched or prone. The announcement does not give percentages, so any exact figure you see quoted elsewhere is not coming from Arrowhead's post.

In practice, this is a passive that rewards setting up and holding a firing position. Pairing it with the Sightliner or the Apex is the obvious fit: crouch on a ridge, let the sway settle, and pick off Devastator heads or Bile Spewer sacs before the patrol even knows where you are. The Focal Point is the better pick if you push forward with the squad and only drop to a crouch when you need a steady shot, while the Mimetic Marshal suits the player who sets up overwatch and stays there. That is our read on the design intent, based on how Arrowhead describes each armor.

Weapon Balance: Killzone and Halo Legendary Weapons

Arrowhead's reasoning for this block is simple. Legendary Warbond weapons cannot be customized with attachments, so they felt weaker than similar weapons that can. The fix is a modest bump to base stats so they compete without overtaking attachment-tuned guns in every situation.

• M90A Shotgun: damage 605 to 726 (+20%), durable damage 220 to 264 (+20%).
• MA5C Assault Rifle: vertical drift 20 to 15, vertical climb 30 to 20, horizontal climb 12 to 6, durable damage 16 to 20.
• StA-52 Assault Rifle: spare magazines 6 to 7, vertical drift 15 to 7.5, vertical climb 25 to 12.5, horizontal drift 10 to 5, horizontal climb 6 to 4.
• StA-11 SMG: damage 90 to 100, durable damage 18 to 20, vertical drift 20 to 12, vertical climb 10 to 8, ergonomics 80 to 90.

The StA-52 change is the sleeper. Halving most of its recoil values plus an extra spare magazine turns it into a much more comfortable gun to hold on target at mid range. The M90A gets the biggest raw jump of the group, and a 20% damage increase on a shotgun shortens the number of trigger pulls on medium targets.

PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle

Arrowhead says the PLAS-39 has a strong identity but felt punishing, pushing players toward specific armor passives just to keep it usable. Its high stagger also worked against precision play: the first shot would stagger the target and the follow-ups would miss the weak spot.

• Reload: 3.3 to 2.7 seconds (about 18% faster).
• Projectile stagger strength: 20 to 15.

Lower stagger sounds like a nerf, but the stated goal is to make it easier to land repeated weak-spot hits, so expect it to feel more like a precision tool and less like a crowd shover.

Sickle and Shotgun Buffs

LAS-16 Sickle and LAS-17 Double-Edge Sickle

The Sickles had fallen behind ballistic weapons, and Arrowhead singles out the long charge-up and cool-down as the main pain. Both variants now:

• Start shooting after 0.33 seconds of trigger press, down from 0.5.
• Begin cooling down 0.66 seconds after you stop firing, down from 1.33.

The base LAS-16 also builds less heat per projectile, 1.15 to 0.95. In plain terms, you get bullets out sooner, you vent sooner, and the standard Sickle can hold the trigger a little longer before it overheats.

Light Penetration Pellet Shotguns

Arrowhead says regular-pellet, light-penetration shotguns were losing out to options with medium penetration or status effects. Each one now kills faster:

• SG-8 Punisher: damage 405 to 486, durable 108 to 135.
• SG-225 Breaker: damage 330 to 396, durable 66 to 88.
• SG-225SP Breaker Spray&Pray: damage 240 to 288, durable 64 to 80.
• SG-22 Bushwhacker (sidearm): damage 450 to 540, durable 108 to 135.

Every one of those is a clean 20% damage increase, with durable damage up between 20% and 33%. If you shelved the Breaker or the Punisher for a medium-penetration option, this is the patch to try them again, especially on bug missions where light armor targets come in volume.

Stratagem Changes in Patch 7.2.0

• M-1000 Maxigun: the delay before regaining movement after you release fire drops from 0.5 seconds to 0. Stagger force goes 15 to 20 and stagger impulse 12 to 24, so it should stagger more enemy types and push corpses out of your line of fire.
• CQC-20 Breaching Hammer: spare charges 7 to 10, so it can be used about as often as other close-range anti-tank options.
• Orbital Airburst Strike: cooldown 100 to 90, explosion cone 35 to 27. Arrowhead explains that the newer Super Destroyer positioning gave the shell a steeper angle, scattering shrapnel too widely. The tighter cone should saturate the target area better.
• EXO-51 Lumberer Exosuit and A/FLAM-40 Flame Sentry: flame particle damage 3 to 8, so they behave closer to other flamethrowers.
• Eagle Airstrike (gas): demolition strength 50 to 40. It could destroy structures like an Orbital, which was unintended. It now only destroys what other Eagle bombs can.

The Maxigun change is the quality-of-life highlight here. Being rooted for half a second after every burst is exactly how you eat a Charger, and removing that lockout entirely should make it far more forgiving. The gas Eagle change is the one real nerf in the stratagem list, and it only matters if you were using it as a budget structure clearer.

Bug Bile Strain and Mission Tweaks

One change under General Gameplay will matter for Terminid fronts. The strain that spawns Bile Warriors, Spewers and Scavengers used to switch on randomly during missions. Arrowhead has broken it out into its own bug strain, now controlled by the Game Masters, with its own visualization showing when it is active, just like Rupture or Spore Burst strains. You should be able to see in advance when you are about to face the bile-heavy variant instead of discovering it mid-drop.

Arrowhead also lists minor combat balancing tweaks for the Evacuate High Value Assets mission.

Crash Fixes, Performance and Other Notable Fixes

The fix list is long, so here are the items that will affect the most players:

• Crashes: fixes for vehicle customization pattern crashes in Ship Management, two SEAF shuttle crashes with large enemy counts, a ragdoll crash, a popup crash, upscaler crashes or grey screens at certain resolutions, and crashes when cycling resolution or render scale. DirectX 12 stability is improved.
• CPU performance: better multithreading for smoother frame pacing, particularly on lower core-count CPUs and Xbox Series S, less stutter from particle effects in heavy combat, faster level loading, and on PC less hitching from shader compilation.
• Visuals: fixes for Dynamic Resolution Scaling issues on AMD Radeon cards, less Screen Space Reflection flicker without anti-aliasing, and missing color grading restored when using NVIDIA DLSS or AMD FSR.
• Enemies: the Crescent Overseer's backpack can be destroyed, killing it; the Hive Lord leaves combat earlier if nobody damages it for a while; Vox Engine doors no longer overdamage grounded players; Watchers no longer spawn in huge numbers when Illuminate fleets mix.
• Weapons and stratagems: the 40-K Meltagun now destroys Command Bunker sides correctly, and the Hellbomb is no longer unavailable on one side of the Gazer Spire objective.
• Quality of life: support weapon settings such as fire mode now persist between uses and across sessions, and SEAF soldiers get three new emotes: Rock, paper, scissors, Pull my finger, and Test of Conviction.

The persistent support weapon settings fix is small on paper, but anyone who has re-set a fire mode for the hundredth time after a resupply will notice it immediately.

What 7.2.0 Means for Your Loadout

Here is our practical read, based on the numbers above:

• Bug fronts: the Breaker, Punisher and Bushwhacker all became stronger answers to light-armor swarms. Pair with the faster Sickle if you prefer an energy primary with no reloads.
• Bot fronts: the Sightliner plus a Shroud armor is the new toy for picking off Devastators from cover, with the Apex as the heavy option. The StA-52's recoil cut also makes it a more reliable mid-range rifle.
• Anti-tank support: the Breaching Hammer's extra charges and the Maxigun's movement fix both reduce the downtime that made them situational.
• Area denial: the Orbital Airburst now comes back 10 seconds sooner with a tighter pattern, which should make it more dependable on objectives.

Nothing here is a meta-breaking nerf, which makes 7.2.0 a rare patch where almost everything you equip either stays the same or gets a little better.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Helldivers 2 using Easy Anti-Cheat now?

Yes. As of patch 7.2.0 on October 20, 2026, Arrowhead replaced GameGuard with Easy Anti-Cheat and added extra security tools to make it more effective. The studio said its GameGuard implementation was not as effective as it could have been.

Can I still play Helldivers 2 on Steam Deck or Linux after the anti-cheat change?

Yes. Arrowhead's anti-cheat FAQ states that Steam Deck and Linux compatibility remains unchanged. If you hit an error, make sure the update installed fully and report it to Arrowhead support on Zendesk.

Does Easy Anti-Cheat change the Helldivers 2 PC requirements?

No. Arrowhead says there are no changes to hardware requirements, and it points players to its support site for the current minimum specs.

Will my Helldivers 2 mods still work after patch 7.2.0?

Not necessarily. Arrowhead warns that mods affecting other players may stop working, and some harmless cosmetic mods may need updates from their creators. The studio does not certify any mod as safe, so using them remains at your own risk.

What is in the Scope of Authority Warbond?

The R-40 Sightliner sniper rifle, P-44 Mist machine pistol, AMW-20 Apex anti-materiel rifle, LAS-44 Nova energy rifle, G-11 Caltrops throwable, SS-33 Mimetic Marshal and SS-15 Focal Point armors with the Stationary Shroud passive, two capes with player cards, the Manual Ballistic Projection emote and the Longshot title.

What does the Stationary Shroud armor passive do?

It reduces weapon sway and detection range while you are crouched or prone. Arrowhead has not published exact percentages for either effect.

Which shotguns were buffed in Helldivers 2 patch 7.2.0?

The M90A Shotgun, SG-8 Punisher, SG-225 Breaker, SG-225SP Breaker Spray&Pray and the SG-22 Bushwhacker sidearm all received a 20% damage increase, with higher durable damage as well.

Did the Orbital Airburst Strike get buffed?

Yes. Its cooldown dropped from 100 to 90 seconds, and its explosion cone narrowed from 35 to 27, which tightens the shrapnel pattern so it covers the target area more reliably.

What changed with Bile Warriors and Spewers?

The strain that spawns Bile Warriors, Spewers and Scavengers is now its own bug strain controlled by the Game Masters, with a visual indicator when it is active, instead of turning on randomly during a mission.