You’re standing on the bridge of the SES Hammer of Justice, staring at your Breaker shotgun, wishing it had a slightly better scope or maybe a bigger magazine. It feels like something is missing. If you’ve spent any time in the Helldivers 2 community, you’ve probably heard people whispering about "weapon mods" or asking where the attachment menu is hidden.
Here is the cold, hard truth: you can't actually swap out parts on your guns.
Wait. Don't close the tab yet. While how to customize weapons in Helldivers 2 doesn't involve a Call of Duty-style gunsmith with fifty different grips and lasers, Arrowhead Game Studios built a much more tactical, "in-the-moment" system that most players completely ignore. If you’re just pulling the trigger, you’re playing the game wrong. You aren't customizing the build of the gun in the hangar; you’re customizing its behavior in the dirt.
The Secret "Hold" Menu You Probably Missed
Most recruits land on a planet, see a Hive Guard, and just start blasting. They never realize that every single primary weapon and support weapon has a hidden radial menu. If you hold down the reload button (Square on PS5, R on PC), a HUD overlay pops up.
This is where the real weapon customization happens during a dive.
Depending on the gun, you can toggle your flashlight, change your fire rate, or adjust your scope zoom. Take the Railgun, for example. By default, it’s in "Safe" mode. It’s fine. It does the job. But if you open that menu and flick it to "Unsafe," you’ve just customized that weapon into a heavy-armor-piercing beast that can one-shot a Hulk—provided you don't let it explode in your hands and turn your torso into fine red mist.
It's a trade-off. Arrowhead, led by creative director Johan Pilestedt, has been very vocal about "realism" and "lethality." They didn't want a menu where you spend twenty minutes picking a camo pattern. They wanted you to decide, while a Bile Titan is screaming at you, whether your Liberator rifle should be on burst fire to save ammo or full-auto because you’re about to be overrun.
Why There Isn't a Traditional Workbench (Yet)
If you played the original Helldivers back in 2015, you remember the upgrade tree. You used Research Points to add bayonets or armor-piercing rounds to your favorite gear. So, why is it gone in the sequel?
Basically, the devs shifted that progression into the Warbonds and the Ship Modules. Instead of making one "Super MG-43," they created different variants of guns as separate unlocks. You don't "mod" a Defender SMG into a Knight SMG; you earn the medals and requisition the specific tool for the specific job.
Honestly, it's a controversial choice. Some players find it's kinda restrictive. They want their favorite assault rifle to have a 50-round drum. But the game’s balance relies on every weapon having a distinct identity with specific downsides. If you could customize away those downsides, the tactical tension would vanish.
That said, there are "Ship Modules" that act as a form of global weapon customization. When you spend samples on the "Synthetic Lead Perforation" or "Hand-Loaded Pack," you aren't just clicking a button. You are fundamentally changing the cooldowns and ammo capacities of your Stratagem weapons. It’s customization by proxy.
Mastering the Fire Modes: Tactical Customization
Let’s talk specifics. You want to know how to customize weapons in Helldivers 2 to survive a Helldive-level mission? You do it by mastering the fire selectors.
- The Scope Zoom: On weapons like the Diligence Counter Sniper, you can toggle between 50m, 100m, and 200m. If you’re trying to headshot a Devastator from across a valley at 50m zoom, you’re making the game harder than it needs to be.
- Flashlight Settings: It sounds stupid until you’re on a midnight mission on a jungle planet. "Auto" mode is a trap. It turns on when you aim, which can actually wash out your vision in the fog. Set it to "On" or "Off" manually based on the planet's atmospheric conditions.
- RPM (Rounds Per Minute): The Stalwart light machine gun is a beast. You can crank that thing up to 1150 RPM. At that speed, it clears chaff like a lawnmower, but you’ll burn through a belt in seconds. Lowering it to 700 RPM makes it a precise tool for picking off Hunters.
This is "active customization." It requires you to know your tool. It isn't a passive stat boost you set and forget in the main menu. You are the mechanic.
Variants: The "Hidden" Customization System
Since you can't swap barrels, you have to look at the Warbonds as your "attachment kits." Think of the "Steeled Veterans" or "Democratic Detonator" Warbonds not as DLC, but as a collection of customized weapon frames.
Take the Breaker shotgun.
The standard Breaker is the jack-of-all-trades.
The Breaker Spray&Pray is essentially the "drum mag and wide choke" customization.
The Breaker Incendiary is the "dragon's breath" mod.
Instead of giving you a workbench, the game gives you a pre-built specialized version of the gun. It forces you to commit to a role before you even drop in. If you take the Incendiary, you’re the crowd control specialist. You can’t swap back to high-velocity slugs mid-mission. This forces team synergy—something Arrowhead leans into heavily.
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The Future: Will We Ever Get a Gunsmith?
The community has been digging through leaked files and datamined info since launch. There have been hints of a "weapon customization" UI found in the game's code, showing slots for scopes and muzzles.
However, don't hold your breath.
The developers have been focused on "Galactic War" balancing and fixing the sheer amount of bugs that come with a live-service hit of this scale. While a proper workbench might arrive in a future "Super-Earth" update, the current philosophy is very much "use what you're issued."
If we do see a change, it likely won't be "plus 5% damage" stickers. It will likely be functional swaps that alter the weapon's physics—maybe swapping a red dot for a thermal scope to see through the thick spore clouds of the Terminid sectors.
Actionable Steps for Your Next Dive
Stop looking for the "Upgrade" button on your ship and start doing these three things to actually master your arsenal:
- Audit Your Hold Menu: Every time you pick up a new weapon—especially a Support Weapon like the Heavy Machine Gun—hold 'R' immediately. See what the options are. Many players don't realize the HMG has three different fire rates, or that the Anti-Material Rifle has multiple zoom levels.
- Match the Planet, Not the Gun: If you're going to a fog-heavy world like Malevelon Creek (RIP) or its successors, your customization is your choice of optic fire-mode. High zoom is useless in a blizzard.
- Invest in Ship Modules: If you want your Support Weapons to feel "upgraded," focus your sample farming on the "Bridge" and "Engineering Bay" modules. These are the only permanent, non-negotiable stat buffs you can give your gear.
- Use the "Unsafe" Toggle: If you use the Railgun or the Plasma Punisher, learn the timing of the "Unsafe" or "Charged" shots. It is the single biggest "mod" in the game in terms of pure DPS output.
The weapon is only as good as the Helldiver holding it. You don't need a golden skin or a vertical foregrip to spread managed democracy. You just need to know which fire rate kills the most bugs before your clip runs dry.
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Get back down there. Super Earth is watching.