It looks like a new enemy faction might already have snuck its way into Helldivers 2, but Arrowhead Game Studios director Johan Pilestedt says these rumours are nothing more than lies and hearsay.
According to Helldivers 2 players on the game’s subreddit, mysterious blue beams and other anomalies have been cropping up in game, causing some to believe the arrival of the previously-leaked faction The Illuminate has already begun. The Illuminate are an alien faction from the first game with the ability to teleport, and it seems some players think they’ve had a close encounter of the third time with the tentacled threat.
Player Dye335 took to the Helldivers 2 subreddit to share their experience, claiming they were hit by a blue laser sniper shot that took them down by 60% of their health and pushed them backwards while on Draupnir. On checking around for enemy threats, there was nothing to be seen, leading them to believe an Illuminate sniper was behind the attack before teleporting away. Other players also shared their experiences on Reddit, with one player catching a rogue blue beam “clear as day” in game footage.
Commenters on Reddit posts relating to The Illuminate in Helldivers 2 are a mix of other players noting strange occurrences – including one player who noted their mech controls had been inadvertently inverted multiple times (something another user noted the alien faction could do in the first game) – and other fans suggested they’re spreading undemocratic lies. “I think this helldiver is suffering from hallucinations, everyone knows that Illuminates aren’t around anymore, will never return and won’t threaten our democracy anymore forever,” one bastion of liberty and democracy said.
Arrowhead CEO and Helldivers 2 director Johan Pilestedt is clearly of the same opinion as many commenters – that these blue beams are nothing more than a figment of the imagination. “Blue beams aren’t real, it can’t hurt you,” he said in a recent post to X (formerly Twitter). Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss indeed, Johan.
While Pilestedt and other members of the Ministry of Truth have been hard at work suppressing what they call “preposterous lies” aimed at “brainwash[ing] good people” when it comes to new threats and features – including flying bugs – the mounting evidence suggests that The Illuminate threat, at least, is likely on the horizon sooner than expected. Or perhaps, this footage and the supposed sightings are all fake news spread by double agents wishing for the downfall of Super Earth. Hard to say.
Arrowhead has been sneaking in new enemy threats into Helldivers 2 without including them in patch notes and then spreading rampant propaganda, ramping up the playerbase paranoia all the while. Flying Terminids (the aforementioned “preposterous lies”) have been cropping up in-game over the last week according to player sightings.
Whatever the case may be – anti-democratic hearsay or concerned whistleblowers – it looks like Helldivers 2 players might be in for a new threat very soon.
Image: Arrowhead Game Studios
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