Helldivers 2 players were served another switcheraroo today as Super Earth declared that the Terminid Control System is a failure. Instead of controlling the population of the Terminids as planned, the towers previously activated by players in March have actually caused an explosion in bug population.
“The Terminid control system has failed. Meridia has turned into a supercolony,” the official Super Earth communique reads. “Termicide may be causing faster reproduction. The TCS must be deactivated immediately.”
The great undoing of the TCS is playing out in a new mission type that’s live now on the border planets of Erata Prime, Fenrir III, and Turing. New “Deactivate” missions, noted by their TCS tower icons, return divers to the TCS facilities we previously defended, except this time they’re all sorts of messed up. The towers have been completely consumed by bug nests. The manmade scaffolding and staircases that once guided players to each battery tower are now buried under a thick caking of black goo. The result is one of the nastiest, most elaborate super nests we’ve yet seen in Helldivers 2.
The objective is twofold: deactivate the battery towers powering the TCS, and destroy the mutated eggs spread across the facility. At just 12 minutes maximum, it’s one of the shortest mission types in the game, but if you spread the work around, you could probably finish it way quicker. I played one mission on difficulty 7 with a group of randoms and was surprised by how easy it was.
MAJOR ORDER: The Terminid Control System has failed, and Meridia is lost. Helldivers, you must deactivate the TCS! pic.twitter.com/vjlMshDMYJApril 29, 2024
Weirdly, our squad didn’t encounter a single Bile Titan, and since this is a single-objective mission with no side tasks, we didn’t have to worry about Shriekers or Harvesters crashing the party. I also wasn’t expecting the battery tower shutdown process to be so straightforward. You just walk up to a terminal and press a button—no code punching, radar tuning, loading bar waiting, or SSSD delivery required.
It’s not the most elaborate Helldivers mission type, or even all that tense so far, but it was exceptionally quick. That alone might raise the eyebrows of those looking for an efficient way to grind medals. The major order to deactivate all TCS towers on Erata Prime, Fenrir III, and Turing is set to last six days, though with a new rocket launcher and loads of new gun buffs drawing players in, I bet it’ll get done faster. After that, it sounds like we’ll have to tackle that “supercolony” on Meridia.