The Catalog Expansion in Helldivers 2 hints at something big on the horizon
Eagle-eyed players of Helldivers 2 have spotted that a new Ship Upgrade has appeared under the Bridge tab in the form of a Catalog Expansion.
However, this upgrade doesn’t seem like it can be unlocked just yet, and the item description is extremely vague. With Arrowhead Studios dropping hints at big updates that could be coming to the game soon, what does it all mean?
What is the Catalog Expansion in Helldivers 2?
If you head to the Ship Management station in Helldivers 2 (that’s the first bank of computers on the left when you arrive on your ship), you might see a new upgrade in the Ship Module menu.
Scroll down to the ‘Bridge’ submenu, and a new fourth option may appear, saying ‘Catalog Expansion’. Here, the subtitle reads, “New stratagem permits added to the ship management terminal for purchase”.
This sounds fairly cut and dry, implying that new Strategems or weapons will arrive in Helldivers 2 sooner rather than later. However, the Upgrade Effect is listed as “Improves steering for Helldivers during Helipod deployment”, which seemingly has nothing to do with new Stratagems.
It could be that the effect is an additional bonus passive awarded upon purchase, or it could be a bug. However, with the Catalog Expansion currently locked for everyone, we can currently only guess.
Click to enlargeThe mystery goes deeper, with the Catalog Expansion only appearing for some players and not others. On my account, I can’t see the new Ship Module anywhere in my menus, despite restarting the game and checking for updates. This might be due to my low level, however - I’m currently only Level 7.
However, I've seen several reports from other players who are at a much higher level than me who have started seeing this new Ship Upgrade in their game, as early as this morning.
What could the Catalog Expansion mean?
As mentioned, we’ll likely see new Stratagems and Weapons arrive in Helldivers 2 very soon. The next major update for the game is scheduled to arrive on Thursday, April 11, and will bring with it a new Warbond to work through.
As my colleague Tarran outlined in his piece on the Democratic Detonation Warbond, new weapons such as the BR-14 Adjudicator Rifle, R-36 Eruptor Rifle, and CB-9 Exploding Crossbow are set to arrive in this update. It could be that these are locked behind the Catalog Expansion to force players to level up their ship before purchasing new weapons.
For a more speculative reach, the Helldivers 2 community is also spitballing that we could be seeing a third faction enter the theatre of galactic war soon. The Illuminate were a third faction in the first Helldivers game, and a recent data mine shows that there are certainly plans for them to come to the sequel soon.
With new aliens to deliver democracy to, we’ll surely need more firepower - and there could well be where the Catalog Expansion comes into play, locking bigger and better Strategems behind a high-level unlock.
When we know more about the Catalog Expansion in Helldivers 2, I’ll be sure to update this article.
For more helpful Helldivers 2 guides, keep reading GGRecon. We’ve also covered how to kill Trooper enemies, how to get the Malevelon Creek Memorial Day Cape, how long it takes to reach max level, and every title in Helldivers 2.
