Super Earth’s heartfelt thank you to Helldivers 2 players inadvertently revealed yet another harrowing cost of the Galactic War

The Helldivers 2 universe is a satirical take on our own, asking what things would be like if we took spreading managed democracy and the values that come with that lifestyle to the extreme. However, Super Earth has just revealed an in-universe fact that’s more harrowing than hilarious.

When you play a mission in Helldivers 2, your squad has a set number of reinforcements. It’s pretty standard because we all know that at least a few of our soldiers are going to be killed, churned up by the endless onslaught of Terminids and Automatons. What you might not consider is how much those deaths cost. Not how much the bill Super Earth foots is, but the bill the poor Helldiver’s family pays to see whatever’s left of their loved one.

Dead Helldivers are just another revenue stream for the relentless Super Earth

Following perhaps the most impactful event in Helldivers 2 history, the collapse of Meridia into a black hole, Super Earth put out a message commemorating those brave soldiers who had lost their lives fighting to make this happen.

The message is perfect because it’s filled with sections with options that are obviously meant to be chosen from instead of sent in this form. The point that stuck out to me is the customary fee for a Helldiver corpse, helmet, or limb that’s usually charged. This is most likely because every body on Meridia was ionized when the black hole was created.

In this one and only case, Super Earth is waiving the transportation fee so families can see the scraps of their loved one return from the front lines. The rest of the time, these families are charged for this service, though, meaning your spouse might get a fair pay packet for fighting for Super Earth, but all your savings will need to be spent bringing pieces of them back from a hostile alien world just to bury them.

This is incredibly dystopian and fits the Helldivers 2 universe incredibly well, but it just stood out to me as something we can point to that shows how capitalism really has gone too far in this universe. Charging Helldivers for new equipment by using a currency they can only earn from battling aliens for Super Earth is one thing, but it feels like you’re taking the piss with an already captive market when you start charging for repatiration.

I couldn’t tell you how much delivering a Helldiver’s had across the galaxy costs, but I looked it up, and repatriation to the UK is about £3,600 and that’s without space travel, so it’s probably a lot more. Considering that Super Earth potentially set Helldivers an impossible objective to boost recruitment numbers, this all feels a lot like a tactic to boost income instead of spreading more democracy.