The post-Super-Earth invasion reprieve for Helldivers 2 players appears to be over as a new threat emerges: jetpack Hulks. A new Major Order contained a stealth update to the heavily armored Automatons that makes them more lethal than ever. Players aren’t sure whether to cheer or cry. Mostly they’re pointing third-person cameras up to the sky like never before.
Surprisingly fast but normally predictable and easily strafed, the Hulks have a whole new level of maneuverability thanks to the jetpacks. They can dodge your attacks, chase you, and generally fuck up your day if you don’t figure out how to deal with them. While players have been tasked with responding to a new coordinated offensive by the Automatons, many are deep in weapons testing trying to figure out the best tactics for dealing with the flying toasters and occasionally marveling at the resulting ragdoll fireworks.
Arc Guard Dog drones can reportedly stun them while Loyalist plasma pistols can still defeat them in a head-on gun fight. Some players didn’t believe their eyes at first when the Hulks started hopping around after the stealth update went live. “I thought this was one of those jank asf physics moment at first, D e a r g o d,” wrote one player on Reddit. “Bots went full Titanfall on us,” wrote another. The only question now is what else might be getting jetpacks in the days ahead. Devastators? Striders? Will players’ own mechs get the same tech in return?
In classic Helldivers 2 fashion, it’s another nice surprise for players who weren’t expecting themselves to be adapting to an entirely new style of Automaton guerrilla warfare this weekend. “Say what you will about bugs in the game,” one fan wrote. “But holy shit new enemy units dropping out of the blue without an announcement are absolute peak.”
Now the only thing players are waiting on are the game’s promised Steam “review bomb” capes. Arrowhead Game Studios promised to release a cosmetic memorializing the battle waged online last year over PSN login requirements which resulted in a sea of negative user reviews, and recently teased its long-awaited arrival. PlayStation eventually backed off of certain region-locking requirements on Steam, allowing players from countries without official PSN account support to rejoin the fight. “We always felt it was something to give away once regions returned,” Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani wrote on Discord last week. “PS has been working hard on this, so a cape to celebrate is in order.”
.