Helldivers 2’s Automaton missions revealed the game’s true challenges

Helldivers 2 was compared with Starship Troopers when it was first released, but since then, the squad-based third-person shooter in Terminator has gotten closer to the post-Doomsday future. While the first mission to retake territory from bugs called Terminids was a success, things went downhill when the game introduced the Automatons, the much harder-to-kill robots that attack super-Earth planets.

Just this week, players lost the planet Malevelon Creek to the Automatons while narrowly freeing Mort after about 10 million Helldiver deaths, according to a post in the official Helldivers 2 discord (via Gamesradar). Despite some successes, the Automatons have pushed back the forces of the Super-Earth for the time being. Starting Thursday, players will see a message stating that the grand order to liberate planets under Automaton’s control has failed and players should change course:

Despite the Helldivers’ valiant efforts, Automaton raiders have invaded Super-Earth territory. Patriotic citizens mourn as their large enough homes burn to the ground. The citizens of Super-Earth demand justice, and they will receive it. But for now, the Terminid control system is ready for activation.

While players can still fight on Automaton worlds, most will likely shift their priorities to Terminid territory, starting with Veld, where there is a hive that has “remained undetected and has been producing undemocratic vermin for weeks.”

Helldivers 2 started with the Terminids, and although they proved challenging, players banded together and were able to complete the first big contract and reap the rewards. That wasn’t the case with the Automatons, who proved to be much tougher than their organic bug brethren. In addition to the fact that even the smallest units are covered in armor that is difficult to penetrate, the game introduced missions that required much more strategy and teamwork than the previous ones. Combined with some surprising real-time work from the developers at Arrowhead Game Studios, failure was inevitable.

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

The mission type that particularly unnerved players were escort missions, where Helldivers had to help researchers and other citizens trapped on planets under attack by Automaton fleets escape to an extraction point. Sounds pretty simple at first glance: follow a few unarmed civilians as they run from one side of a relatively small area to the other. It was also a common goal of the Terminids. However, anyone who has played through any of these Automaton missions will tell you that after rescuing the first 10 or so, you will be bombarded with Automatons of all kinds. And since these missions take place in tight spaces with lots of bottlenecks and the NPCs aren’t particularly good at sustaining themselves, it’s easy for players and civilians to die over and over again.

Players in the Helldivers subreddit have been trying to plan strategies for this particular mission type since the start of the campaign. The consensus was to have a full four-person team, with three people luring enemies to the outskirts of the mission area and one person focusing on stealth tactics to escort civilians (that means using smoke strategies or special scouting armor sets). However, this only works if people are willing to constantly communicate on voice chat. Depending on your difficulty level, you can still experience extremely high spawn rates that will decimate your team no matter how coordinated you are. And that’s also possible with the 40-minute clock a lot Time for things to go horribly wrong. Plus, Players have reported bugslike NPCs standing in front of the extraction point without entering.

I spoke to a player who identified himself to Polygon as Alessio, aka Zarrusso on Reddit, who posted one clear, comprehensive visual instructions how to tackle these missions this week by basically summarizing all the different Reddit threads and YouTube videos on the topic. The guide suggests landing as far from the target as possible, along with a number of war strategies to equip.

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment

“On difficulty level 6 [Extreme] “And all of the above leads to the difficulty increasing greatly and we couldn’t kill the enemies fast enough and the civilians continued to die after they took a step outside,” he wrote. “After getting some advice from YouTube and Reddit and just playing the missions, I put together this little strategy. And now I’m playing these missions on difficulty levels 7, 8 and 9 and have completed about 90 percent of my escort missions.”

These escort missions require much more strategy than others. Some Automaton objectives are almost identical to Terminid objectives (kill a certain number of enemies, launch an ICBM), so they did not have a large barrier to entry and therefore did not require nearly as much coordination between players, especially on lower difficulties. “The other missions don’t require as much strategy. On lower difficulties you can do them practically without thinking, but you still have to bring the right weapons,” Zarrusso explained.

However, the Automaton escort missions presented a completely different challenge for players, despite being similar to the previous ones. This led to many people spamming easier 15 minute goals instead. With so many failures on the board, it is no wonder that the community has not been successful in their collective fight.

But it could have been failure all along. In a video before the release, deputy game director Sagar Beroshi revealed Helldivers 2 There would be a game master who introduces twists and story moments, watches players complete missions, and reacts in real time. Players still have some degree of control over how mission orders play out, but like a tabletop RPG, the GM will move players in a certain direction, sometimes with a little improvisation. This can include something small, such as: B. providing an additional strategy mid-round, or something that has a much larger global impact.

“The enemies have goals, right? “You will look at what you did, respond to the way you – that is, you as a community – behaved, and respond in a way that changes the face of the galaxy afterwards,” Beroshi said.

A current PC gamer article contains a brief interview with CEO Johan Pilestedt, who explained that this developer’s name is Joel and he appears to “take his job very seriously.”

“Joel, in his infinite wisdom, decided, ‘What happens when one faction wins part of a war?’ Well, they’re dismantling everything.’ “That’s where the firemine segment came from,” Pilestedt gave as an example, referring to the time when players received free access to the firemine strategy game.

Helldivers 2 will continue to surprise players with this tactic. “We have integrated many systems into the game where the game master has a lot of control over the gaming experience. It’s something we continually evolve based on what happens in the game,” Pilestedt said. “And as part of the roadmap, there are things we want to keep secret because we want to surprise and delight.” This will likely happen with mechs that have been teased and been the subject of leaks, along with other new enemies and stories. It’s all a good reminder that your best efforts may be in vain, but you can turn the tide of the war, making for a more complex gaming experience.