The Galactic Emergency update in Helldivers 2 didn’t just bring chaos with the Illuminate invasion — it also gave players a long-requested feature: weapon customization. While still a work in progress, it finally lets you tweak how your guns behave, letting you build a loadout that actually feels like your own. If you’re wondering how to get started or what all the new options really mean, here’s a full breakdown.
How Weapon Customization Works
As of this writing only a few selected primary weapons can be customized. Some are still locked out, though future updates may expand the list. To make your weapon customizable you should equip the gun in your loadout and head into missions. As you complete objectives, it’ll quietly rack up XP in the background. You don’t need to use it constantly — just having it equipped is enough.
After the mission, head back to the Armory, select the weapon, and open the customization menu. Inside, you’ll find attachments that unlock as the weapon levels up. These can be purchased using Requisition Slips, and each one subtly or significantly changes how your gun performs — faster aiming, tighter recoil, larger mags, and so on.
How to Level Up Weapons
Here’s where things get a bit weird: your weapon gains XP based on the mission itself, not how much you actually fire it. Whether you spend the entire round using Stratagems or run-and-gun with your secondary, it doesn’t matter — the XP earned is tied to overall mission completion.
So if you’re looking to speed things up, focus on finishing missions, completing bonus objectives, and successfully extracting. That last part matters more than you’d think; no extraction, no big XP boost. Stay alive, wrap things up, and your gun levels will climb faster than you’d expect.
Gun Stats
Before you go loading up your gun with shiny new parts, it helps to understand what those stats are telling you:
- Damage – The amount of health each shot takes off an enemy
- Ergonomics – How quickly you can aim down sights
- Fire Limit – How much ammo a weapon contains
- Fire Rate – How fast the gun fires bullets per second
- Horizontal Recoil – How much the gun kicks sideways when firing
- Sway – How much the gun drifts while aiming
- Reload Time – How long it takes to reload
- Magazines – How much extra ammo you carry into battle
- Vertical Recoil – How much the gun climbs when firing
Once you know what each stat affects, you can start making smarter decisions with attachments. There’s no perfect combo for every player, but a good rule of thumb is to pick attachments that minimize a gun’s biggest drawback, or lean into its strengths to make it even deadlier.
Got a rifle with nasty recoil but great damage? Cut down the kick with a stabilizer. Using a fast-firing SMG that eats through ammo? Add a mag extension to stay in the fight longer. Small tweaks add up fast, and the more you experiment, the more comfortable you get crafting a gun that suits your playstyle.
