Helldivers 2 mech video surfaces alongside rumours of meteor Stratagems and deployable AI squad mates

rockpapershotgun.com:

We knew the Helldivers 2 team were looking ahead to the future now that they'd largely overcome the game's most significant server issues. But we weren't expecting to see new additions quite so quickly, as rideable mechs have been spotted in the wilds. When are they actually being added to the game? No idea. Do they look cool as heck? Yes, absolutely.

Mech footage first emerged thanks to Reddit leaker fozzye18, who posted a clip entitled "Mechs… enjoy". We see a player hop inside a bulky mech, wander about a tiny bit, then fire off explosive rounds from guns attached to the arms.

Further down the Reddit thread, fozzye18 mentions how he stumbled on the mech in the first place, while hinting at other Stratagems (that is, equipment, bombs, and barrages that drop from the sky) that could be coming to Helldivers 2 in the future.

Fozzye18 was unsure of the mech player's identity - perhaps it was one of the human game masters who tweak co-op fights in real time.

Another clip courtesy of Redditor Klyka shows a mech being dropped into a map, except this time the mech's kitted out with rocket launchers and a minigun. There's no confirmation of how this clip surfaced, besides someone in the thread suggesting it could have been taken from the demo video you'd see if you previewed the mech in-game.

It comes as no surprise that mechs are arriving in Helldivers 2 - they're shown in the "Report For Duty" trailer and also feature in the original game. As for how they work in Helldivers 1, you call them down like any other Stratagem and they aren't as overpowered as they might seem. They are slow and lumbering, making them vulnerable to nimble critters, while their low ammo count means they are better at dealing with heavily armoured opponents who require big firepower. This Reddit thread does a nice job of summarising their key strengths and weaknesses.

Still, mechs in Helldivers 2 may not work quite the same as they do in Helldivers 1. The perspective has shifted from top-down to