Arrowhead’s long-awaited Helldivers 2 upscaling update is finally here, adding DLSS and FSR to the popular co-op game. Unfortunately, the studio’s implementation appears borked with players reporting horrendous image quality compared to other games using the same technology.
Released as part of the game’s ongoing Optimising Liberty initiative, Helldivers 2 players can now turn on DLSS 4.5, FSR 3.1.5, FSR 4.0.3, and XeSS 3.0 on PC. Upscaling has also been added to PS5 and Xbox Series with FSR 3.1 support alongside PSSR 1.0 support for PS5 Pro.
Arrowhead described the update as “just the opening salvo in an ongoing campaign to improve performance across the fleet”. However, the long-awaited update—which was originally asked for by fans back during early 2024—has arrived in a bizarrely broken state.
The implementation of DLSS was not only supposed to help ease the game’s heavy GPU load, but also improve image quality compared to its built-in TAA. However, fans have discovered that not only is DLSS decreasing performance in some areas, which isn’t the case in other titles, but the game’s upscaler looks worse than the game’s already shoddy TAA solution.
Currently, the game’s utilisation of DLSS not only results in a blurrier picture, but also increases aliasing across the board, especially when alpha effects intersect with geometry. While this was an issue in earlier forms of Nvidia’s technology, DLSS 4.5 doesn’t suffer from these issues in other modern games.
Right now, the issue mainly seems to affect PC players with no complaints from PS5 and Xbox players over those platform’s implementations of FSR and PSSR. However, on PC, there are obvious issues with massively increased shimmering, moire patterns and more when using DLSS 4.5 quality mode. Additionally, Helldivers 2 fans have not been able to inject other versions of DLSS into the game via the Nvidia App as the program claims the game does not support the upscaler.
“Well, the game is supposed to be using DLSS 4.5 and I’ve tried both model L and M, and thus far Helldivers is the only game that looks a** with quality DLSS enabled,” one user complained in the official HD2 Discord server.
At the time of writing, there has been no word from Arrowhead regarding the issues surrounding its use of DLSS. However, fans have theorised that the game’s usage of the technology is currently now working as intended, or has not been properly implemented for its debut, and is stretching the image during upscaling which leads to more noticeable pixelation.
“The game still stretches the image instead of upscaling it via AI models like DLSS or FSR,” one user said. “Those solutions are only used for anti-aliasing for some reason. TAA is the only one that doesn’t turn the game into Minecraft.”
Even worse, the image quality issue isn’t the only problem with this new Helldivers 2 update. Multiple users have reported major graphical errors since the new patch with bright, flickering artifacts now appearing across the entire game for some players.
Players have also given each other tips to make DLSS look better, including turning off Variable Rate Shading, Motion Blur, Bloom, and increasing the resolution of volumetric effects which bug out the upscaler. With that said, hopefully, the game’s DLSS implementation can be improved in the future.
Arrowhead is currently working on major additions to Helldivers 2, which should be shown off later this year. While full details are not available right now, the studio has confirmed that it will show off the game’s long-awaited progression system rework this Summer.
Additionally, new campaigns are in development for the Galactic War alongside additional warbonds, including a Warhammer 40,000 crossover.
