Helldivers 2’s Control Group Warbond is All About High-Risk, Low-Reward

As is the case with any content related to player customization, not every Premium Warbond will be everyone’s cup of tea in Helldivers 2, whether that’s because of their relevant aesthetic and theme, as well as the particular equipment they include or exclude. For example, Helldivers 2’s most recent Warbond, Force of Law, would’ve been a dream come true for anyone who adores a science-fiction law enforcement motif akin to Dredd or RoboCop. Fortunately, there is perpetually a healthy rotation of themed content available in the Superstore, especially if players are happy to purchase items they won’t earn elsewhere.

That said, another important consideration to make regarding Helldivers 2 Warbonds is how fun their associable content will be to actually wield in a loadout versus how detrimental it may be. Players who adorn Force of Law’s BP-32 Jackboot or BP-20 Correct Officer armor possess the Ballistic Padding armor passive, for instance, which provides a series of positive boons: 25% resistance to chest damage and explosive damage, as well as preventing all damage from bleeding if players’ chests hemorrhage. Helldivers 2’s newly announced Warbond, however, seems to chiefly consist of equipment and weapons that do significantly more harm than good.

Helldivers 2’s Control Group is a Case Study in Playful Masochism

The Control Group Warbond is amusingly leaning heavily on the idea of field-testing experimental alien technology procured from Helldivers 2’s Illuminate, such as Dark Fluid, and repurposed as equipment designed by the Ministry of Defense Research & Development team. It’s possible that this could be the first significant step toward a full-scale Warbond representing the enemy faction, possibly with armor sets that transform players into voteless; nonetheless, appropriating alien technology and having it immediately backfire at the player’s expense is wholly comedic and predictable.

Indeed, Control Group is full of items that have huge asterisks attached in terms of how negatively they can affect players if wielded poorly or carelessly. Therefore, nearly every addition in Helldivers 2’s upcoming Warbond comes with an appended warning that players can’t afford to overlook:

The VG-70 Variable primary has a firing mode called Total that “may result in bodily harm to the user” as it “fires all remaining ammunition in one go” and has nasty knockback.

The PLAS-45 Epoch support weapon “can explode if overcharged” while charging plasma into a “focused sphere.”

The LIFT-182 Warp Pack stratagem enables short-range teleportation jumps, but subsequent jumps harm and eventually kill the player.

The A/LAS-98 Laser Sentry is a disaster waiting to happen as its supersized heatsink turret “can overheat and explode if the laser is continuously active with no cooldown.”

Helldivers 2’s Control Group Armor Passive Has a Massive Drawback

Moreover, perhaps the most egregious and deceptive new piece of equipment devised by Helldivers 2’s R&D team is its armor passive for the AD-26 Bleeding Edge (medium) and AD-49 Apollonian (heavy) sets: AdrenoDefibrillator. On its surface, the Adreno-Defibrillator component sounds phenomenal as it behaves like a revive feature with full health replenishment.

If that were its whole function, AdrenoDefibrillator might be the best new Helldivers 2 armor passive. Rather, it must be stressed that “the AdrenoDefibrillator only has enough charge for one use to bring the user to maximum health, and the user will begin losing health continually after activating it.”

So, while the revive is a neat touch, players will suffer the cost of it for the remainder of the mission and will be preoccupied with relentlessly stimming themselves, lest they continue to die incessantly. Likewise, it’s also been clarified that the AdrenoDefibrillator passive doesn’t activate if players’ deaths result in the loss of a limb, meaning it won’t revive players in each and every instance of them perishing.