Helldivers failed to complete a mission, and developers are punishing them

Arrowhead Game Studios has been keeping Helldivers 2 players busy since it felt the sting of the review-bomb, and it seems that those in the still-permitted regions of play are returning to business as usual. It's strange to call an all-out war on robotic forces "business as usual," but who are we to judge?

Fans are getting stuck in once again, but there's been a noticeable change, as fans seem more likely to cave to apathy when it comes to the Major Orders issued by the team. And now, it looks like it's got the better of them, as players are feeling punished for their failures.

Helldivers fail a Major Order, and Arrowhead is punishing them

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Helldivers have been getting used to completing Arrowhead's Major Orders every time they come around to earn medals and, according to the game's team itself, earn new gameplay additions that can help them turn the tide in battles.

It turns out that players couldn't manage a recent event, and it's coming down on them hard. According to reports from fans in the game's Discord, the failure to kill two million Automatons (just as they did with two million Terminids) has led to a stratagem being put back on the shelf due to a lack of resolve or faith in Super Earth.

Community manager Baskinator said to players in the Helldivers 2 Discord channel: "After five days of intense decommissioning of Automatons into scrap metal for use in advanced anti-tank mines, the Helldivers came 78% towards the stated goal of 2 billion dead bots. This means that the new stratagem will continue to elude the Helldiver arsenal for now…"

The dedication to the back-and-forth between players and Arrowhead cosplaying as the steel-fisted Helldivers military is commendable, but it's easy to consider that this is a great opportunity for Arrowhead to tidy up the stratagem if it's still a little buggy.

It's pretty clever on the part of the devs, and players seem none the wiser, thinking that it's up to them to keep working as hard as they can to earn it. The war goes on.