Helldivers 2 is always changing. One day you might wake up to a new DLC adding aliens with mind control powers called the Illuminate. Another you might encounter a big patch that secretly adds shovels. Or you might load up the sci-fi shooter and immediately receive an evacuation order for Angel’s Venture because it’s about to be destroyed by a rogue black hole.
Players who were online at the time could jump to the planetary system in question and behold the destruction of what’s been one of the big battlefields in the Galactic War that began back when Helldivers 2 launched in February 2024. Millions of Helldivers died liberating the autumnal planet from Terminid control beginning with Operation Valiant Enclosure. Players only ever lost one battle there. But this week, it proved to be all for naught when Helldivers dungeon master Joel decided to make it the first pawn to fall in a much more sinister game.
But it’s not the first time a planet was destroyed in Helldivers 2. Meridian was the first to fall, and not at the hands of outside forces. It was players who destroyed that planet last year by turning it into a black hole as a means toward eradicating a mutated Terminid Super Colony of their own unintentional making. It was the first example of Arrowhead Game Studios fundamentally altering its in-game cosmos in service of its grim military storytelling. And it’s not clear it was part of a grander plan.
Last weekend, players were given the Major Order to go contest the Illuminate’s control of the black hole, lest the aliens fuel it with dark energy for unknown purposes. “The Illuminate are now actively moving Meridia,” an in-game message informed players on February 8. “The Center of Science on Fenrir III can confirm: Meridia is in motion. The Dark Energy that the illuminate muster through their many invasions appears to be key. The Helldivers is [sic] now called upon to limit the Illuminate accumulation of this Dark Energy.”
It’s unclear how the black hole can be stopped but things will get very, very bad if it’s not. The anomaly is now on a collision course for Super Earth, with five other planets in the way. Plus, the more dark energy it accrues, the faster it moves. Players had been tracking it via in-game tools over the past week. How many more planets will fall before the Illuminate’s plan can be unraveled and halted? Or is Arrowhead planning to celebrate Helldivers 2's one-year anniversary with a Super Earth showdown players have been waiting for?
Either way, it’s a testament to the game’s one-of-a-kind evolving online world that it feels like it’s building toward something despite all of the repetition and incremental progress. Players of the original Helldivers have won the Galactic War multiple times at this point, with each victory clearing the board ahead of a new campaign. I’m excited to see what Arrowhead’s long-term plans are with this sequel. It feels like Helldivers 2 has room to continuing evolving, both mechanically and narratively, for years to come.
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