Helldivers 2 Liberty Day Explained

If you’ve been playing Helldivers 2 as of late, the odds are that you’ve caught wind of something known as “Liberty Day” taking place soon. This faux holiday is, in fact, a bit of an institution for the developer Arrowhead Game Studios, and we may end up celebrating it.

Precious little is known about how Liberty Day may or may not be celebrated in Helldivers 2 at this time. In the original Helldivers, however, this holiday usually marked the release of free new Stratagems, tactical gear, cosmetics, and even entirely new game modes. Here’s everything we know about it from the years prior!

What is Liberty Day?

Liberty Day is a fictional Super Earth holiday celebrated on October 26. Curiously enough, this is (possibly) in reference to two things:

• Starship Troopers (the novel) was first published on October 26, 1959
• Arrowhead’s former CEO and current CCO, Johan Pilestedt, celebrates his birthday on October 26

The date appears to have some backstory, then, though I reckon it may just be a happy coincidence that Pilested’s birthday is on this very date. The Starship Troopers parallel is more likely to have been the motivation on this front.

Back on track, 2024 marks the first time we get to see Liberty Day in action in Helldivers 2, as the game came out in February. There’s no precedent as to what might happen, then, though I am reasonably sure it’s going to include some manner of throwback to the old Helldivers title. There is a bunch of content that Arrowhead might wish to port into the new game, after all.

One thing we can do, however, is to check out how Arrowhead celebrated Liberty Day in Helldivers, and that might give us an idea of what to expect in Helldivers 2 this October 26.

What’s going to happen in Helldivers 2 on Liberty Day?

The first Helldivers game received four substantial content updates themed after Liberty Day:

• 2016: M2016 Constitution rifle, Liberty Cape, Community Cape, Developer Cape
• 2017: Heavy Strafing Run, A/GL-8 Launcher Turret, Thunderer Smoke Round
• 2018: MGX-42 Machine Gun, Combat difficulties 13, 14, and 15
• 2019: Proving Grounds game mode, 9 new Cape items, ability to randomize and favorite item loadouts

Apart from these rewards, Arrowhead would also host annual AMAs (ask me anything), giveaways, and game-streaming events on Liberty Day, and I don’t see any reason why this wouldn’t be the case for Helldivers 2.

There have been unofficial murmurs of some classic Helldiver gear coming back. Possibly even the M2016 Constitution, which is basically a take on the Space Garand M1 concept that even Deep Rock Galactic has chosen to adopt. The baseline M1 Tactical armor set would be a good choice, too, though you obviously want to take all of this with a pinch of salt.

Helldivers 2‘s first Liberty Day is set and primed for celebration on October 26, so not too long to wait now. Let’s see what comes of it.