Helldivers 2’s latest major contract could finally deliver anti-tank mines

In Helldivers 2the player base waits impatiently for Major Orders, military orders from Super Earth. The entire community then bands together to achieve these goals. Since February, Super Earth’s leadership has asked us to do lots of crazy things, like opening a black hole or storming the Automaton room to cleanse the galaxy of murderous robots. But a recent Major Order is quite unusual, as it actively prevents murder.

Developer Arrowhead Game Studios is enticing players with the Anti-Tank Mine upgrade, a strategy that has repeatedly eluded Helldivers. The only catch? Players must not achieve a certain number of kills.

Large contracts can reward new toys called stratagems. These are tactical tools such as weapons, backpacks, supplies or orbital bombardments for use in the game. Anti-tank mines are not yet available, however.

In fact, this is the player’s fourth attempt to unlock anti-tank mines. The first Grand Contract that offered them as a possible reward instead spawned Airburst Rocket Launchers, which players chose en masse due to their strength against dangerous Automaton ships. A second Grand Contract required players to turn a certain number of Automatons into scrap to obtain the mines; the community failed this contract.

Next, players had to choose between the anti-tank mines and a hospital full of critically ill children, aptly named Operation Trolley Problem. The Helldivers community showed courage by choosing to save the children. It was incredibly healing, but meant they had to forgo those powerful explosive delights.

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios/PlayStation PC LLC

Here comes the latest major mission, Operation Vengeful Cleansing. High Command has ordered an effectiveness review. If players can collectively kill a certain number of enemies, then we are clearly in a good position and don’t need these mines. If we tilt Kill these enemies, then Super Earth will eventually distribute these mines to Helldivers in the virtual field. It’s a pretty high goal – over 1.5 billion Enemies – and the players are only about halfway through, with less than a day left, so if all goes according to plan, we’ll finally get those mines.

The mines currently in the game are not a particularly popular class of stratagem. They are usually unreliable when it comes to taking out large hordes of enemies – unless you can set up the ambush just right – but very reliable to take out your allies in friendly fire. Call it poorly run democracy if you want. This is probably why players chose other options when presented to them.

But anti-tank mines don’t seem to be nearly as deadly to individual Helldivers as the game’s current offering. Rather than drilling holes in soldiers, they’re designed for much larger targets and won’t trigger when infantry units walk over them. We know that the Escalation of Freedom update, currently scheduled to release on August 6, will include both a new Missile Tank enemy and a new Spore Loader that shrouds itself in mist. Some new, highly effective mines might be just the thing to counter these new enemies, so I’ll thank the Super Earth High Command for their generosity should they show up.

Also set to release on August 8 is the new Freedom’s Flame Warbond, which includes fireproof armor and new flamethrowers. Warbonds include new weapons, cosmetics, and armor sets that players can unlock with medals earned in battle. We’ll have to wait and see what other missions Super Earth gives us after we’ve met the goal of an insufficient number of bot and bug kills.