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A week after Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios teased the Cutting Edge Premium Warbond for the first time, the new battle pass has gone live in the popular co-op PvE shooter. Like the pair of Warbonds that the game launched with in February, Cutting Edge expands the player's arsenal with several new weapons, armor sets, and other items like a booster and a grenade, along with cosmetic unlocks like capes, player cards, and post-mission victory poses. After all, you're Super Earth's finest, and you deserve the best.
Now that the Cutting Edge Warbond is here, we know everything that's in it, how much it costs to buy, the number of Warbond Medals you'll need to spend to unlock all of its items, and more. I've put together a quick guide that goes over all of that info and more below, so read on for everything you need to know.
Cutting Edge Warbond: Price and how to get
Unlike the standard Helldivers Mobilize Warbond that everyone gets access to for free, Premium Warbonds like Cutting Edge have a price. Like the Steeled Veteran pass, the Cutting Edge Warbond costs 1,000 Super Credits to purchase.
To get 1,000 Super Credits, you can either buy them for $10 in the Super Credits tab of the Acquisition Center or search points of interest (POIs) for them during missions. The latter method only nets you small amounts of Super Credits each time you find them and you'll often come across Warbond Medals, samples, or support weapons at POIs instead, but the upside is that you don't have to spend any money. Plus, farming POIs for Super Credits is quite easy, as it can be done reliably on low difficulties like Trivial and Easy.
Once you have the Super Credits you need, you can get Cutting Edge by scrolling down the Warbonds tab in the Acquisition Center and selecting the button to purchase it. As soon as it's yours, you can start unlocking its items with your Warbond Medals.
Cutting Edge Warbond: Pages and everything new
The Cutting Edge Warbond has three pages of unlocks in total, with each one sporting new weapons, armor pieces, grenades, boosters, and/or cosmetics. Below, you'll find a complete list of all the rewards on every page, along with the number of Warbond Medals you'll need to get each one.
- PAGE 1
- Weapons
- LAS-16 Sickle: Automatic energy-based primary rifle (20 Medals).
- Armors
- EX-03 Prototype 3: Medium body armor with Electrical Conduit passive that reduces incoming arc damage by 95% (18 Medals).
- EX-03 Prototype 3 (Helmet): Helmet that matches the body armor of the same name. Standard stats (12 Medals).
- Boosters
- Localization Confusion: Increases time between enemy encounters (18 Medals).
- Cosmetics
- Head Tap (Victory Pose): Costs 8 Medals.
- Botslayer (Cape): Costs 8 Medals.
- Botslayer (Player Card): Costs 2 Medals.
- Currency
- 100 Super Credits: Costs 7 Medals.
- Weapons
- PAGE 2
- Weapons
- SG-8P Punisher Plasma: An explosive variant of the Punisher shotgun that fires plasma projectiles (60 Medals).
- G-23 Stun: A grenade that briefly stuns nearby enemies when it detonates, stopping them in their tracks (25 Medals).
- Armors
- EX-16 Prototype 16: Medium body armor with Electrical Conduit passive that reduces incoming arc damage by 95% (45 Medals).
- EX-16 Prototype 16 (Helmet): Helmet that matches the body armor of the same name. Standard stats (35 Medals).
- Cosmetics
- Shotgun Show (Victory Pose): Costs 15 Medals.
- Martyris Rex (Cape): Costs 20 Medals.
- Martyris Rex (Player Card): Costs 5 Medals.
- Currency
- 100 Super Credits: Costs 12 Medals.
- Weapons
- PAGE 3
- Weapons
- ARC-12 Blitzer: A primary shotgun that fires arc bolts. Very similar to the Arc Thrower support weapon (80 Medals).
- LAS-7 Dagger: Secondary energy pistol that fires a laser beam. Similar to the LAS-5 Scythe (60 Medals).
- Armors
- EX-00 Prototype X: Light body armor with Electrical Conduit passive that reduces incoming arc damage by 95% (64 Medals).
- EX-00 Prototype X (Helmet): Helmet that matches the body armor of the same name. Standard stats (48 Medals).
- Cosmetics
- Presentable (Victory Pose): Costs 32 Medals.
- Agent of Oblivion (Cape): Costs 30 Medals.
- Agent of Oblivion (Player Card): Costs 16 Medals.
- Currency
- 100 Super Credits: Costs 32 Medals.
- Weapons
The overall theme of the pass is electric and energy damage, as all of its weapons are either arc or energy-based and its armor sets give you the Electrical Conduit passive that reduces incoming arc damage by 95% (you won't have to worry about your teammates frying you with an Arc Thrower while wearing one).
Cutting Edge Warbond: Medal requirements
Like previous Warbonds, Cutting Edge requires you to use Warbond Medals to unlock all of its items. Note that you can only move forward to the next page on the battle pass once you've spent a set number of Medals on what's available to you from the get-go, meaning that you'll have to grind for a while before you can access the gear on Page 2 and 3.
Here's how many Medals you'll need to get everything on each page, and also the amount required to unlock all of Cutting Edge in total:
- Page 1: 93 Medals
- Page 2: 217 Medals
- Page 3: 362 Medals
- Total: 672 Medals
Ever since Arrowhead made Helldivers 2's Eradicate missions harder with last week's balance patch, farming them for Warbond Medals has become significantly less efficient. Instead, I recommend fully completing Planetary Operations, as each consecutive mission you finish in them gives you bonus Medals.
Does the Cutting Edge Warbond have a time limit?
If you're worried about the Cutting Edge Warbond expiring before you can earn enough Medals to unlock everything on it, don't be. Cutting Edge doesn't have a time limit of any kind, and its arrival hasn't made older Helldivers 2 Warbonds unavailable, either. This is in-line with Arrowhead's policy on Warbonds, which the studio outlined in a blog post ahead of Helldivers 2's launch.
“At Arrowhead, we're gamers too, and we want these Warbonds to feel modern, fun, and in line with the Arrowhead style. This is important to us: the Warbonds are NOT a pay-to-win, FOMO-driven system. Instead, the gear in the Warbonds just keeps accumulating," wrote deputy game director Sagar Beroshi. "We will not retire earlier Warbonds as new ones are released — you can pick them up and complete them at any time!”
Is the Cutting Edge Warbond worth it?
Even though I haven't had much of a chance to actually play with most of the new gameplay items included in the pass yet, I'd say Cutting Edge is definitely worth getting. The new weapons seem quite powerful based on what I've seen of them in action so far — especially since the latest patch notes reduced heavy enemy spawns — and armor sets that allow you to easily survive being struck by lightning damage will enable some incredible strategies. For example, a teammate could shoot you with their arc weapon and chain lightning to enemies near you, essentially using you as a conduit (hence the name of the passive). Imagine how wild things will get if everyone in your team is using one of these, shock weapons, and Tesla Tower stratagems.
From a cosmetics perspective, you're getting three full armor sets, capes, player cards, and victory poses for 1,000 Super Credits; you'd have to pay a lot more for all of these items individually on the Superstore, so the value here is good in that respect as well. Plus — and this is subjective, but still — the armor and capes all look great, with clean designs and desirable colors like tan and green that go well with much of Helldivers 2's existing gear.
Even if you started playing the game recently and have to decide between saving up your Super Credits for Steeled Veterans or Cutting Edge first, I think going for Cutting Edge will be the play. Frankly, most of the unlocks on Steeled Veterans are mediocre, and you can get armor sets with the Servo-Assisted trait from the Superstore. Right now, Electrical Conduit is exclusive to Cutting Edge armors, making the Warbond as a whole more valuable.
Helldivers 2 is available now for $39.99 on both PS5 and PC, and so far, it's one of the best PC games of the year. Notably, the game also supports cross-platform play between PS5 and PC.
