Helldivers 2's new explosive hammer is the most dumb fun I've had in ages

I love melee combat in games, but it never quite clicked for me with Helldivers 2. The closest I came to making it work was during the Illuminate invasion of Earth, when I ran around hacking up voteless with the extremely fun sabre from the Masters of Ceremony warbond. Still, it never quite clicked for me—melee always felt like a bit of a meme build, fun to play around with, but always inferior to good ol' guns and energy weapons.

Well, consider me a convert. A new invasion is underway—though this time it's a ride or die road trip to the Automaton homeworld of Cyberstan—and we're fighting our way there one hammerblow at a time. The Breaching Hammer, from the new Siege Breakers warbond, is a stratagem-level melee weapon, like the One True Flag from Masters of Ceremony or the Defoliation Tool from Python Commandos.

The key difference? The Breaching Hammer actually feels like a viable option against Automatons on the highest difficulty. When you whack an enemy with the sledge, it deals an explosive charge, detonating whatever's in front of it—it's amazing how many things you can hammer. Last night I was running up to Automaton Fabricators, whacking them, and watching as, a few seconds later, they exploded at the sheer power of my strike. You can even destroy bug holes, though I don't advise this since you have to be inside of them and they collapse on top of you, which I discovered the hard way.

Hulks? Bonk 'em in the face. War Striders? BREAK THEIR LEGS. Hell, I've even seen someone kill a Factory Strider with it, though admittedly, when I tried this myself, I got eviscerated by lasers. Still, unlike a lot of the other melee weapons, the Breaching Hammer is a strong option at the highest difficulty. I was running Super Helldives last night on the new Automaton missions, and it's so useful for quickly dealing with tougher enemies and those tricky situations where Hulks close you into melee.

I do recommend taking some extra protection. I personally whacked on heavy armour with 50% explosion damage reduction, for all those Automaton missiles, but also all the clanker enemies and structures that explode when they die. If you have multiple divers using the hammer, it's also very easy to kill them if you're hitting the same foe, so a little extra protection comes in clutch.

You could also bring a personal shield generator, but I prefer coupling the hammer with a supply pack, since this lets you take more stims to stay alive, and refill ammo for the hammer itself. You could also bring Thermite and refill those grenades for anything the hammer can't quite handle, though that's not much.

Altogether, it has seven charges, and you'll need to reload after every impact, but one hit will kill a Hulk if you smack it in its centre mass. I think this one-and-done playstyle is why the Breaching Hammer is so good; you can quickly take out a big enemy and then switch back to your other weapons—you don't have to kill everything with it, just those pesky tougher targets

It's also ridiculously fun, sprinting into Automaton bases, diving between laser fire as you explode enemy after enemy. It's almost a little minigame, working out how to approach a Hulk, War Strider, or even Factory Strider without getting killed, to whack it with your hammer. While I 100% recommend grabbing it, since it's part of a Premium Warbond, you'll need Super Credits and Medals to actually unlock the stratagem. If you don't have either right now, you can still enjoy the new tank, which is free for everyone as we blast our way to Cyberstan.