Because of how stagnant Helldivers 2 is between updates and Warbond content unlocks, it’s not surprising when even the most minor change becomes remarkable. For example, not much variance at all has struck the game in terms of what its meta loadouts are, despite its content being incredibly fun on a Level 10 Super Helldive difficulty loop. Helldivers 2’s booster meta is profoundly regressive, too, with four boosters having a clear and overwhelming advantage over any others. And, as for what players strive to achieve on a moment-to-moment basis, Major Orders are still the peak of short-term gameplay goals.
Personal Orders, on the other hand, have been an oversight in Helldivers 2 for a while. I’ve longed for POs to be more specific and tailored toward niche gameplay challenges, at least semi-regularly, for the game not to feel so monotonous as I cut down Terminids, Automatons, and Illuminate in miscellaneous missions, and Arrowhead had suddenly graced us with another the other day. Sadly, I’m only now realizing that POs this particular may not be beneficial overall. In fact, while I love that gameplay variety is encouraged, I may have spoken out of turn about how poorly designed I thought POs were.
The most recent Helldivers 2 Personal Order has players extract from a successful mission 3 times, which resorts back to the generic Personal Order methodology, suggesting that specific POs may not be rampant or consecutive.
Helldivers 2’s Niche Personal Orders are Back, But is That a Good Thing?
Personal Orders are normally uninteresting and therefore lack substance. For instance, players will routinely be tasked with the following:
- Complete 6 optional objectives
- Extract from a successful mission 3 times (the current Personal Order)
- Successfully extract with 10 common samples
- Successfully extract with 5 rare samples
These aren’t inherently bad PO tasks to be given, but they aren’t creative at all. Part of the fun of older, more rare POs is that you’d be challenged to use a firearm that might’ve been out of your wheelhouse and slay specific enemies with it, optionally diversifying gameplay a little bit with the incentive of 15 of Helldivers 2’s Warbond medals. Now, POs are so basic that you’ll undoubtedly accomplish them without even attempting to or knowing what the PO was, so long as you play a handful of missions in a sitting.
To be fair, it’s fully possible that there have been better POs lately that were sprinkled throughout, and I wouldn’t have noticed due to simply electing not to pay too much mind to them anymore. It wasn’t until the other day’s PO that I became aware that they were making a comeback, and it’ll be neat to see if they’re intended to be a permanent fixture or not:
Helldivers 2’s Previous Personal Order
Kill 250 Voteless using the Arc Thrower.
As mentioned, there is no indication that POs are being overhauled. However, what I didn’t anticipate was that these nuanced, curated tasks would require me to withdraw from my beloved Helldivers 2 anti-tank meta, much less substitute a vital weapon in my core build for something I despise wielding.
I suppose that my preconceived notion of POs needing to be more specific came from me not having a firm grasp on what build I liked as far back as 400 hours ago in Helldivers 2, and it occurs to me today that POs being the same ladleful of slop from a banal trough may have been the best course of action after all.
The reason I say this is that you can brainlessly accomplish POs to earn 15 Warbond medals. But, if you want those 15 Warbond medals, and the PO compels you to go out of your way to use a weapon you dislike and actively search for enemy units to kill, I can see this effort being more of a slog than it’s worth for a reward that we’d otherwise earn freely and inadvertently.
Plus, with Helldivers 2’s primary weapon customization, you may not need another reason to experiment with weapons that you wouldn’t touch in any other circumstance. Ultimately, I’m on the fence about how POs may be tweaked, and it’ll be intriguing to see if their approach makes any difference to me when the time comes for me to need to grind medals for upcoming Helldivers 2 Warbonds, even if I find plenty already during missions.
Helldivers 2
-
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
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- All platforms
- Prequel(s)
- Helldivers
- Franchise
- Helldivers
- Number of Players
- 1-4 players (online)
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Playable
- PC Release Date
- February 8, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- August 26, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- February 8, 2024
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Extraction Shooter, Action, Science Fiction
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
- How Long To Beat
- 70 hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 25.96 GB
