Earlier this morning, Helldivers 2 players successfully freed Tien Kwan and unlocked Exosuit mechs — giant pillboxes on legs with thick armor, anti-tank rockets, and a heavy machine gun that developer Arrowhead first teased shortly before the game’s February release. It was the biggest, most important battle in the co-op shooter’s Galactic War metagame yet, but the community rose to the challenge tremendously, liberating the planet in just over 24 hours.
As you’d expect, every red-blooded Super Earth patriot in the galaxy is bolting to unlock the new EXO-45 Patriot Exosuit stratagem so they can take it for a spin — and Helldivers 2’s servers are struggling to keep up. Many have been experiencing login issues and connection errors since it became available, and now, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt has confirmed that the mech hype is the cause.
“With the successful push from the community to take Tien Kwan and the subsequent enabling of the mechs our servers have a hard time coping, the team is aware and doing what they can to mitigate,” he explained in a post on X (Twitter). “This intermittent issue is caused by too many trying to acquire the mech at the same time. Service will be restored eventually, but for now I ask for patience.”
“I am so impressed by the combined power and dedication of the @helldivers2 community. You all are massive heroes [for] liberating Tien Kwan 4x faster than we thought 🧐,” he finished. The Major Order to retake Tien Kwan was issued Wednesday morning, and was set to expire on Sunday morning.
I hopped into a few matches earlier today to test out the Patriot Exosuit, and I’m happy to report that it’s just as awesome as everyone was hoping it’d be (it’ll certainly become one of the best stratagems). Though it’s got a limited amount of ammunition, a limit of two uses per mission, and a lengthy 10 minute cooldown time, it can mow down hordes of Terminids with ease and has the anti-armor firepower needed to go toe-to-toe with enemies like Hulks, Chargers, Bile Titans. You can even use it to pancake bugs or bots close to you with stomps, and thanks to its high durability, doing so isn’t terribly risky. If you ever played Halo 4 or 5, it’s essentially just like a Mantis from those games.
The one gripe I have with the mech is that if you’re using the default Helldivers 2 controls on PC (I am), you can’t scroll around your map or place icons on it without accidentally firing off rounds or rockets. This is because both the map and mech piloting controls use the left and right mouse button, though I suspect this may be a bug since having the map out while you’re on foot prevents you from aiming or firing your weapon. Regardless, I hope Arrowhead fixes or reworks this soon.
To unlock the Patriot Exosuit, you’ll need to be Level 25 or above and will need a total of 20,000 Requisitions. You’ll find it on the stratagem tab within the Ship Management menu, at the end of the Robotics Workshop category found at the bottom of the page.
Temporarily, you also have the opportunity to call in one mech for free during each mission, no stratagem slot required, thanks to the generosity of our lord and savior Joel the Game Master. 20,000 Requisitions is a lot if you’re a new player and haven’t been saving them up, so taking advantage of this to try the Exosuit out before deciding if you want to prioritize it over other unlocks is a good idea. And hey, even if you already have it, you can call down three mechs per level instead of two. Liberty treats her Helldivers right.
Helldivers 2 is available now for $39.99 on both PS5 and PC, and so far, it’s one of the best PC games of the year. Notably, the game also supports cross-platform play between PS5 and PC.
