Angel’s Venture has fallen, and the Meridia singularity is on a crash course for Super Earth with countless innocent lives caught in the crossfire. The Illuminate might have been late to the party, but they’ve made it crystal clear they are not messing around. This is the highest stakes storyline the game has ever put forward, and it’s going to take the combined efforts of everyone in the Helldivers 2 community to make sure the black hole formerly known as Meridia does not make it to Super Earth.
With the Illuminate making their entrance into Helldivers 2’s Galactic War in such a grandiose way, it might be easy to overlook the two factions that have been there since launch. When compared to the genocidal efforts of the squids, the bots and bugs seem like small peanuts in comparison. The ante has officially been upped, and the ball is in the Terminids’ and Automatons’ respective courts.
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Helldivers 2's Other Two Factions Need to Keep Up With the Illuminate's Threat Level
The Terminids and Automatons Need to Step Up Their Game After Ther Meridia Story Concludes
The Illuminate offensive is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, storylines Arrowhead has created with Helldivers 2. The scale and stakes are off the charts, even compared to the destruction of Meridia last year. There’s no telling what will happen should players fail to halt the advance of the black hole hurtling through space toward Super Earth. While it seems unlikely on a meta level that the developers would allow their game to be prematurely ended so easily by such an occurrence, it still remains a tangible possibility.
But for how excellent the Meridia singularity storyline has been and continues to be, the same can’t be said for the current state of the Automatons and the Terminids. Both launch factions have been in a bit of a slump since the Illuminate hit the scene in December. Some of it is recency bias, no doubt, but the direct existential threat to Super Earth posed by the squids is something that neither of the other factions have ever come close to replicating.
That's not to say that the bugs and the bots haven't had great storytelling moments; quite the contrary, in fact. The campaign to destroy Meridia was some of the most fun helldivers have had on the bug front and that initial destruction of the automatons felt like a real accomplishment early on in the game’s lifespan. And lest anyone forge the (mostly fan-written) campaign to reclaim Malevelon Creek.
These stories were a lot of fun and remain a big part of what’s made Helldivers 2 such a memorable experience. But the gauntlet has been thrown down. Destroying a planet or pushing a faction off the map doesn’t have the same level of impact anymore. After this black hole narrative is resolved, Arrowhead needs to remind the community that the bugs and bots still represent an equally existential threat to managed democracy.
What that could be is limited to the developers’ imaginations, but there has to be some major threat to Super Earth as a whole; a threat that could wipe out the central control of the SEAF military and feasibly end the helldivers’ involvement in the galactic war. Whatever it is, it’s got to be big to compete and up the ante from the tomfoolery the Illuminate are currently getting up to. And it seems as though the devs have already sewn the seeds for the next major campaign, whatever and whenever it may be.
Helldivers 2's New Meridia Storyline is its Most Menacing Yet
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Arrowhead Has Set Up Major Threat Narratives for Both the Bots and the Bugs
The Gloom infecting the eastern reaches of the galaxy could creep forward, threatening to mutate and warp the rest of the planets under Super Earth’s control. This would force players into a race against the clock to turn back the Gloom and solve whatever is causing it before the sickly orange cloud envelops everything good and democratic in the galaxy. The bugs, admittedly, are a little tough to write a story like this for, given that they seem to lack the means to plan and travel on a planet to planet scale, but the mutative, infectious cloud of the Gloom might be an even larger threat at this point, depending on how it works.
While the terminids and the Gloom are more of a passive threat with their respective existences, the automatons are clearly revving up for something huge. Ever since they were temporarily pushed out of the galaxy, they’ve been holding the line around Cyberstan, homeworld of the cyborgs from the original Helldivers and a brutal penal colony of Super Earth. According to lore, cyborgs were essentially created as a slave race for the military industrial complex of Super Earth, so they’re clearly not too happy with the state of affairs in the galaxy. Something horrible is going to be marching out of Cyberstan sooner rather than later.
There’s no telling just where the overarching narrative of Helldivers 2 ends up. Though it’s likely to never have a concrete ending due to the nature of the live service model, the major four-way conflict between Super Earth, the terminids, the automatons, and the Illuminate is likely to reach a head at some point. No matter what Arrowhead has planned for the future, one thing is certain; the devs need to remind the community that the bots and bugs are not enemies to be trifled with.
Helldivers 2
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 91%
- Released
- February 8, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Arrowhead Game Studios, Nixxes
- Publisher(s)
- Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation Publishing
WHERE TO PLAY
The Galaxy’s Last Line of Offence. Enlist in the Helldivers and join the fight for freedom across a hostile galaxy in a fast, frantic, and ferocious third-person shooter.
URGENT BROADCAST – SUPER EARTH ARMED FORCES
Freedom. Peace. Democracy. Your Super Earth-born rights. The key pillars of our civilization. Of our very existence. But the war rages on. And everything is once again under threat.
Join the greatest military force the galaxy has ever seen and make this a safe and free place to live.
BECOME A LEGEND
You will be assembled into squads of up to four Helldivers and assigned strategic missions. Watch each other’s back – friendly fire is an unfortunate certainty of war, but victory without teamwork is impossible.
LOADOUTS
Rain down freedom from above, sneak through enemy territory, or grit your teeth and charge head-first into the jaws of combat. How you deliver liberty is your choice; you’ll have access to a wide array of explosive firepower, life-saving armor and battle-changing stratagems… the jewel in every Helldiver’s arsenal.
REQUISITION
Super Earth recognises your hard work with valuable Requisition. Use it to access different rewards that benefit you, your squad, your destroyer ship and our overall war effort.
THREATS
Everything on every planet wants you dead. That’s what we’re dealing with. Each enemy has distinct and unpredictable characteristics, tactics, and behavior – but they all fight ferociously and without fear or morality.
THE GALACTIC WAR
Capturing enemy planets, defending against invasions, and completing missions will contribute to our overall effort. This war will be won or lost depending on the actions of everyone involved.
We stand together, or we fall apart.
- Engine
- bitsquid
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- All platforms
- Franchise
- Helldivers
- Number of Players
- 1-4 players (online)
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Extraction Shooter, Action, Science Fiction
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
