If you've been patriotically fighting for democracy across Helldivers 2's galaxy, before getting frame drops and stutters while attempting to defeat the various bugs or Automatons, you may have gone to find the DLSS setting in the options menu. However, the option is missing, and there's a good reason for it.
While some players will be having a blast loading up their favourite Stratagems and jumping into the Hellpods using the best graphics cards, there are plenty of people on older GPUs that use DLSS or FSR to boost their performance. Especially if you're running one of the best budget PC setups. However, while it might be disappointing to see such a common option unavailable in the cooperative shooter, Arrowhead Studios' CEO has given us a great explanation as to why it isn't here.
Taking to Twitter to respond to a complaint about bugs and the lack of DLSS and FSR, the creative director of Helldivers 2, Johan Pilestedt, started off by saying that DLSS is "cool tech, but not necessary", adding that "If I have code time over [sic] I prefer to put that to good use focusing on the core gameplay as it's what is most important for a game to be successful".
Pilestedt fittingly ended the tweet by saying "This way of thinking seems to have paid off", and he certainly seems to be right. Under the handle @Pilestedt, the CEO of Arrowhead Studios has been keeping avid Helldivers up to date with the server issues, with the team consistently upgrading server capacity. Many soldiers are trying to find out how to bypass the queue in Helldivers 2, or hoping to fix Helldivers 2's error codes due to server problems, but these are certainly signs of a game that has succeeded beyond expectations.
It's definitely possible that the game could get DLSS or FSR in a future update, but the focus right now seems to be on keeping the lore of the game going, with the Galactic War being fought by Helldivers on two fronts, as well as fixing server and game issues. However, Pilestedt's consistent responses to players has been refreshing to say the least.