It wasn’t that long ago that Super Earth successfully (?) spaghettified a team of scientists to develop a new type of weapon, and Helldivers 2 players have already gotten around to using it. Specifically, the recent planetary destruction campaign was a resounding success, and Meridia is now a black hole.
Over the past couple of days, Helldiver forces were tasked with a unique Dark Fluid mission type. It consisted of Helldivers 2 players taking the fight to the Terminid super-colony on Meridia and injecting canisters of the Fluid into the planetary core. While the operation was no simple feat, Helldiver fireteams were successful in the end, and Meridia is now permanently spaghettified, from the looks of it. According to Super Earth, what was once Meridia is now a humongous black hole, but something may be amiss here.
Helldivers 2’s Meridia is now a black hole or something like it
While the jury is still out on whether the former planet of Meridia truly is a black hole or not, the visual representation of the anomaly itself may remind veteran Helldivers players of the infamous third faction from the first game: the Illuminate. The aesthetic is, broadly, on point, as the Illuminate used to leverage dark energy portals to move around the battlefield, and this is most definitely not the first hint of Illuminate presence we’ve seen so far. The Meridia operation’s Dark Fluid had to come from somewhere, right? To say nothing of the strange murmurs that can be heard coming from the “black hole”.
Depending on how (un)lucky you are, you may have already fallen victim to one of Helldivers 2‘s biggest question marks yet: the strange blue lasers that strike players down out of nowhere every so often. There’s a lot to suggest that the long-anticipated return of the Illuminate faction is almost upon us, then, even if we don’t really have any hard information on the when, what, how, and why of the event. As with many such things, developer Arrowhead Games is keeping cards close to its chest, but the writing seems to be on the wall at last.
It’s a good thing, too, as Helldivers 2 is yet to receive its next major update, which is supposed to revert the game’s excessive enemy spawns among other ongoing issues. Between the relatively mild reception to the new mech and the aforementioned spawning problems, there’s a lot of stuff that requires Arrowhead Games’ attention.
Since the studio usually keeps a tight lid on the most exciting pieces of content coming to Helldivers 2, it’s entirely possible that the Illuminates could be a part of this future update. Certainly, all the pieces have fallen into place by now, but pushing out a whole new faction might prove to be particularly risky at this time. Only one way to find out what happens next!
