Why the Fate of Melee Weapons May Be Sealed

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home February 11, 2025 5 Views 5 Min Read
Why the Fate of Melee Weapons May Be Sealed
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Helldivers 2 has always been stalwartly confident in the kind of game it aims to be. Helldivers 2 has never had a pay-to-win ideology, for example, and players are only ever instilled with self-inflicted FOMO if they decide that something available in the Superstore is to their liking enough to purchase it. Meanwhile, Helldivers 2 is always adding new content that players can forever access and work toward with earned medals via Premium Warbonds.

The one uncertainty in Helldivers 2, at least until recently, was what role melee weapons would play in the meta. Melee weapons didn’t exist in Helldivers 2 until the Omens of Tyranny update debuted a Stun Baton and Stun Lance alongside the Illuminate enemy faction and, while there could be exceptional potential for melee weapons to be overpowered and spectacular, the fact that melee weapons are primarily available in the Superstore rather than Premium Warbonds insinuates that they’ll never be buffed to have a truly significant role in gameplay.

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Helldivers 2’s Content is Divided Between Warbonds and the Superstore

The CQC-19 Stun Lance is available in Helldivers 2’s Urban Legends Warbond. However, its smaller counterpart, the CQC-30 Stun Baton, is only available in the Superstore. Because the Superstore operates on a rotational cycle of available purchasable items for 48 hours, the Baton is theoretically rarer than the Lance.

Interestingly, other melee weapons have been offered in the Superstore since, while Helldivers 2’s latest Warbond, Servants of Freedom, lacked one. The Lance being available in Urban Legends suggests that future Warbonds may have melee weapons of their own and yet, knowing Helldivers 2’s live-service ethos, it would be fair to assume that melee weapons will never be tremendously viable tools in combat, at least when compared to the arsenals of hyperbolic and bombastic firepower players can combine in their assorted loadouts.

A truly profound melee weapon would need to compensate for players substituting it for a sidearm or grenade launcher, especially one as outstanding as Helldivers 2’s brand-new GP-31 Ultimatum, and that’d be a tall order.

Helldivers 2’s Melee Tools are Better as Gimmicks Than Weapons

On a fundamental level, it wouldn’t be fair to sell melee weapons with epic features or exciting gameplay functions exclusively in the Superstore. The Superstore is as accessible to players as Warbonds are, but the value of Warbonds is meant to be much more gracious with multiple pages bearing armor, helmets, capes, emotes, victory poses, titles, banners, vehicle or Hellpod colorway patterns, stratagems, primary and secondary weapons, and throwables.

Only having to pay a couple-hundred in-game credits for a spontaneous melee weapon in the Superstore is nice, though to have them be actual weapons players could rely on in a mission would be disappointing for players who only care to spend money on Helldivers 2 when a content-packed Warbond drops. Powerful melee weapons that might contend with any ordinary secondary weapon, for example, would also have to be accessible in Warbonds to ensure that players aren’t able to miss out on them and have to wait for them to reappear in the Superstore.

Otherwise, melee weapons rotating in the Superstore can be fun secondaries to equip and wield as gimmicks. Of course, this is already true of Helldivers 2’s entrenchment tools, which are hilariously being implemented for players to dig at points of interest. This may be the perfect use of such melee weapons if they’re never going to be on the level of primary weapons, but only time will tell how melee tools and weapons may evolve in Helldivers 2’s second year.

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