Major Orders are the primary objectives that drive the overarching narrative in Helldivers 2. These instructions from Super Earth help us beat the factions fighting against managed democracy in the Second Galactic War, but lately, they’ve been a chaotic mess.
The current Major Order has Helldivers 2 players frantically spreading themselves across five alien worlds in an attempt to liberate them in the name of Super Earth. This has been far from straightforward, though, with many planets in sectors across the galaxy also requiring players to defend them lest they be overtaken by the bugs or bots, so it’s all felt stressful. However, the community has come together brilliantly to complete this Major Order against all odds and organize themselves multiple times a day.
Managed democracy is organized democracy
I play a fair bit of Helldivers 2, and all I’ve seen on the game’s subreddit during this Major Order are posts trying to wrangle the community into liberating the correct planet so we don’t lose one or miss a defensive objective. These posts are often short-lived to avoid confusion, but they get the message across.
When these posts do appear, they don’t get much engagement, but I’ve noticed a stark contrast in how well the player base is organized and throwing itself at the correct targets because of them. The tricky thing is that Helldivers 2 now shows players the supply lines between planets, which gives you a visual representation of where enemies are coming from. This can make you believe that you should be liberating one planet when, in fact, you should be working with everyone else on another because of a defense mission.
In simple terms, this means that we can be required to defend one planet, but liberating the one along the supply lines will both get rid of enemies there and complete the defensive mission. It kills two birds with one stone, allowing us to have now almost completed this Major Order within the time limit. Which we’ll go on to do.
Without this sort of coordination across the game’s subreddit, we probably wouldn’t have stood a chance against the Terminids in this Major Order. Especially with the broken “Kill 5” Personal Order that cropped up.
With this victory, the Helldivers 2 community has shown that it’s ready for these more complex objectives that force them to work together to locate the right target and stamp out the bugs or bots there. If developer Arrowhead Game Studios pushed out more challenging Major Orders that force us to work together like this one did, it would make the game feel fresh and full of life, regardless of what those discussing its player count believe.
