Helldivers 2 players have spent over six months blowing up giant bugs and demolishing killer robots in never-ending battles across the galaxy. Finally, however, a new enemy is seemingly emerging as Arrowhead Studios teases the return of the series’ Illuminate faction to mix things up.
The highly advanced race of aquatic enemies faced players in the first Helldivers, but at the sequel’s launch there were no traces of the Illuminate. The lore reason for this is that they were thought to have already been exterminated by humanity, but Helldivers is rife with unreliable in-game propaganda and players have suspected the blue aliens might be returning when Arrowhead determined the time was right. Today they got their first glimpse.
Multiple players started reporting flashes of a new alien faction on the Galactic War map in the Rictus Sector on Wednesday. “Just had this on the map and then it vanished,” wrote SnakehipsFindlay on the subreddit.
“Took a screenshot in case it was the stims playing with my mind again.” A similar tease was shared by NJRhailFire. “Hey guys just logged into Helldivers for the first time in a while and noticed the Illuminate on the map,” they wrote. “Is anyone else got this as well?”
It might have been easy to dismiss as a hoax, but Arrowhead directly acknowledged the appearance of a third enemy on the map with a new in-game transmission. “System Outage Update,” it began. “Some Helldivers may have noticed a recent service outage in the Major Order Communication Display. The issue has since been resolved (details below).” The in-game lore reason for the faulty display was a technician who got trapped in a server room and melted onto the hardware, but players have long been trained to take these “glitch” sightings as part of an intentional rollout plan by the developers to build mystery and intrigue.
The size of the map has long had room for a third front in humanity’s war on the galaxy in Helldivers, and the Illuminate were a natural guess for who would call the empty space home given their role in the first game. It’s always possible that Helldivers 2 is cooking up a bigger surprise, however, or that the aquatic aliens might operate differently this time around. Players are currently awaiting word on the game’s next major patch on September 5. The update was delayed at the last minute as the studio promises to keep to its 60-day roadmap for improving the game’s stability, performance, and bugs as it battles growing player unrest amid all of the weapon nerfs and new paid War Bonds.