Helldivers 2‘s meta-narrative has constantly kept players on their toes since everyone’s contributions to missions has a tangible effect on how the Galactic War plays out, with it entirely possible to fail the Major Orders and lose control of planets. But perhaps the biggest shake-up is the community’s recent failure, which has triggered what developer Arrowhead Game Studios is calling the Second Galactic War.
For context, players were tasked with killing two billion Automatons in five days, but only managed to reach 78% of the goal. An in-game update and a post to the Helldivers 2 Discord (which has since been shared to Reddit) states, “The war now escalates into what is officially called The Second Galactic War,” adding that everything up until this point was only part of an “elaborate special operation.” There is something quietly terrifying about all the chaos, destruction, and death so far as being but a prelude, though that also makes Helldivers 2‘s future all the more exciting.
This failure also means players won’t be unlocking a new Stratagem, but Arrowhead says it will “elude the Helldiver arsenal for now,” suggesting there’ll be another way to obtain it later down the line. Perhaps the most intriguing detail is that players are expected to protect training facilities full of new recruits. Some players on Reddit suspect this is leading up to an actual in-game mechanic, such as a Stratagem that lets you summon NPC allies to help you in battle. I’ve also seen it suggested that the new recruits in question are actually meant to be new players via a free trial or an Xbox port.
An Xbox port sounds like wishful thinking considering Helldivers 2 is a Sony published game. There has been a demand for it, though, and Microsoft has shown a willingness to port some of its exclusives to PlayStation. Sony’s general manager Sadahiko Hayakawa did also comment on the importance of improving player engagement during an earnings call (via Seeking Alpha): “By steadily maintaining and expanding the consistently increased number of active users and user engagement while also strengthening control over business costs, we believe that we will be able to steadily increase sales and profits on the PS platform going forward.”
Bringing a game as popular as Helldivers 2 to Xbox would certainly improve player engagement, though whether Sony is genuinely considering putting one of its biggest successes on a rival platform is something only the company knows.
