Helldivers 2 devs have proven before that they aren’t above a little trolling—proclaiming that bugs can’t fly (they can), that there are no such things as heavy machine guns (there are) and that blue lasers aren’t real (jury’s still out on that one).
Super Earth propagandists have apparently discovered new and creative ways to mess with us, however, as shared on the official Helldivers Twitter today.
The meme, lab-grown by only the finest experts in our glorious managed democracy’s R&D department, shows the Super Earth spokesperson deliberating over a choice between two stratagem inputs, and—hey, wait a minute!
As you might have pieced together by now, neither of these stratagem inputs are in the game at the moment, which means that Arrowhead is teasing two new stratagems here. Despite claiming that the post is “Managed Democracy manifest”, there doesn’t appear to be a way to vote. Which is sort of fitting since, in-universe, voters just fill out a questionnaire and have a candidate selected for them anyway. After all, informed and purposeful decisions only slow the march of democracy down.
As to what these mystery stratagems could be, the smart money’s on one of those vehicle leaks that’ve been broadcast on treasonous channels or dropped into games by fake Joels lately. Out of sheer curiosity and a love of liberty, I decided to check and see if any of these inputs were featured in the first game—nope, no cigar.
Which means these things could be anything from those aforementioned leaks—a warthog-style vehicle, a machine gun with its own barricade—or something we’ve never seen before.
I’m apparently “not allowed to suggest weapons anymore” because they’re “unsafe” and “out of budget”, but if I could choose, I’d add a payload of randomly-selected stratagem beacons and a mech with two flamethrowers to the current roster. That, or a giant boombox that destroys enemies with our own freedom-loving raps. We cannot let the Automaton’s fire disses go unpunished.