Third-person co-op shooter Helldivers 2 has captured the hearts and minds of players around the world, and the community that has formed around it is enthralling to watch. Players have fully surrendered to the game’s humour and roleplay as soldiers of Super Earth who are out there squishing bugs, lighting up killer robots, and spreading managed democracy. They’re locked in a galactic war against a lone developer at Arrowhead Game Studios named Joel, who has delivered a dramatic war narrative filled with the highs of rousing successes and the lows of crushing defeats.
Even now, players are taking back a cluster of planets from the bug-like Terminids in hopes of being able to use a weapon of mass destruction and eliminate them for good. A more anxious subset of players worry that a victory over the bugs might actually portend even worse things, and as if that weren’t bad enough, the damn bugs began sprouting wings earlier this week. Now, one player is rising to meet the occasion and help beaten-down helldivers all across the galaxy.
As first reported by IGN, their name and title is Skull Admiral .atasu, and in their own words, “I am that level 50 guy.” According to their post on the Helldivers 2 subreddit, they “like answering distress calls” because after playing the game for 200 hours, they only collect “SuperCreds and Democrating Liberty ofc.” You can’t make this shit up, folks.
.atasu answers in-game SOS beacons, which is a Stratagem available to players who need a helping hand. When used, it pings players back at the galactic map on the dropships and allows them to join up. .atasu appears to respond to these with some frequency and prioritizes completing the main objective for distressed squads.
“I will try to save you from imminent danger and lead you towards victory. If I see 3 dudes constantly dying into a useless bug hole – I will head to the obj cleaning all places of interest I come across and save all the samples I see. After I will head to the extr. zone and call pelican-1. And I will tell you, ‘don’t worry, shuttle can wait till the end of the game, you can finish everything, don’t worry.’ And that’s true – shuttle will wait after landing.”
I mean, what a goddamn prince? .atasu is Helldivers 2’s very own “Let Me Solo Her.” In case the reference is lost on you, “Let Me Solo Her” was a player in Elden Ring who rose to legendary status in its community for assisting players in an optional late-game boss fight against Malenia, who is arguably the game’s toughest fight and one of the hardest encounters FromSoftware has ever made. Much like the SOS Stratagem, players can summon others to help them in most FromSoftware games, and “Let Me Solo Her” specifically put their summoning tag by her boss fight door and insisted that they fight her alone. Upon being summoned, they’d often emote to the summoner, suggesting they vacate the immediate area, and then take her on. Within months, they’d defeated Malenia more than 1000 times, and FromSoft even sent them an actual sword to commemorate their status.
Similar to “Let Me Solo Her”, .atasu seems to be an experienced player leveraging their strength to help others in their community. It’s sweet, especially considering how other players have taken the bit too far and become the very thing Helldivers 2 is mocking. .atasu seems to have run into this toxicity themself, noting that “being kicked right after joining is quite discouraging and harmful experience. You ask for help, I try to do so..”
Y’all, stop being mean to .atasu and each other. We’ve got democracy to spread, and we can do it together.
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