Helldivers 2 is a fast, frantic, and ferocious third-person shooter where players risk their lives to defend Super Earth from relentless alien threats. Your mission? To spread peace, liberty, and managed democracy, one well-placed explosive at a time.
Before diving into a mission, players can choose how intense and challenging they want their experience to be. If you are a new recruit, you might be wondering why most difficulty levels are locked and what makes one different. This short guide breaks down all the difficulty levels in Helldivers 2, explaining how they impact gameplay and what you need to unlock them.

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All Available Difficulty Levels in Helldivers 2
There are 10 difficulty levels to choose from in Helldivers 2, starting with a casual walk in the park and going up to a ruthless fight for survival.
- Trivial
- Easy
- Medium
- Challenging
- Hard
- Extreme
- Suicide Mission
- Impossible
- Helldive
- Super Helldive
Helldivers 2 Difficulty Differences and Scaling
The higher the difficulty level in Helldivers 2, the more explosions and chaos. Enemy forces increase in numbers, patrols become denser, and certain types, such as Bile Titans, start spawning.
Higher difficulty missions also introduce more enemy outposts to destroy and increase the number of optional objectives. Importantly, the number and type of Samples found depends on the difficulty, with Pink Super Samples only appearing at Extreme difficulty or higher.
Here are some notable difficulty differences regarding enemy types.
- Challenging: Chargers, Hulks, Tanks, and Harvesters start spawning.
- Hard: Bile Titans and Impalers start spawning.
- Suicide: Factory Striders, Barrager Tanks, Spore Chargers, and Charger Behemoths start spawning.
- Impossible: Alpha Commanders and Rocket Striders start spawning.
Additionally, your rewards in Helldivers 2 scale with the difficulty setting, making tougher missions even more worthwhile. Higher-tier missions grant more Experience, Medals, and Requisition Slips to help you level up, progress Warbonds, and get ship upgrades, respectively.
With Helldivers 2 continuously expanding its content, unlocking everything requires a serious gameplay investment. Hence, push yourself to play at the highest difficulty level you can handle to maximize your rewards.
How to Unlock and Change Difficulty Levels in Helldivers 2
To change your preferred difficulty settings, access the Galactic War Table in the middle of the Bridge. Then press Q and E on PC or L1 and R1 on PlayStation 5 to cycle through the difficulties at the bottom of the screen. Once chosen, start or join a mission to continue the Galactic War. You can adjust your difficulty setting before starting a quick-play session or an operation. However, once a mission begins, the difficulty is locked in and cannot be changed. Plan accordingly before deploying into battle!
Super Earth values your patriotism, but new players (rookies) cannot dive straight into a level 10 Super Helldive mission. To unlock higher difficulties in Helldivers 2, you must complete an entire operation at the previous difficulty level. These consist of a set of three missions that must be completed together. If you abandon an operation midway to start a different one, your progress in the original operation will be lost, meaning it will not count toward unlocking the next difficulty level.
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