For most of this week, Helldivers 2 players have been reporting signings of blue lasers and beams during missions. Sometimes, these beams pass over them harmlessly, while they act like sniper fire and kill others.
The common thread is that these beams are blue, which no enemy faction in the game currently fires. After much debate about how this could be the return of the Illuminate faction, Arrowhead Game Studios’ CEO has stepped up to resolve the matter, stating, “Blue beams aren’t real, it can’t hurt you.”
Johan Pilestedt’s post on Twitter does very little to comfort the hundreds of Helldivers currently fighting to push back the enemies of Super Earth. Even after a major victory in successfully setting up the Termicide Towers across every barrier planet to hold back the Terminid swarm, these blue lasers have players worried.
What is the Illuminate?
At the time of writing, it’s impossible to say what these blue lasers are and what they mean for the future of Helldivers 2. However, some veteran players recognize the laser fire from the first game, that of the Illuminate. This powerful foe is an advanced alien civilization that’s got eyes for Super Earth and a ton of firepower to back itself up.
Some players have even captured footage of the blue lasers thought to be coming from the Illuminate and shared them. This one from Lifeless demonstrates how they aim at players in an attempt to kill them. However, there’s no sign of where the shots were fired from, indicating that they could be stealth sniper units of some sort.
In the first game, the Illuminate were aquatic creatures who had taken their first steps toward interstellar travel and quickly constructed a complex network for travel. Super Earth noticed their powerful weapons and couldn’t ignore them, so went on the assault. Their forces are made up of machines with a distinctly oceanic design. Drones and machines were built to explore and thrive underwater or in space instead of on land.
Given how the rough story in Helldivers 2 has evolved since the game’s release and this recent post from the developer’s CEO, I think the Illuminate is almost certainly on the way. My bet is that we see repercussions from the Termicide Tower deployment in a few months, so a new enemy faction would be a lovely distraction to make us forget about that ecological disaster.
Prior to this writing, players completed the latest Major Order, so we’ll have to see if that unlocked the faction immediately or if there are more Major Orders on the way for blue lasers to interfere with before the alien menace is fully revealed. I can already feel the community itching to have a new group of planets to dive into.
