Helldivers 2's ongoing galactic war has had its twists and turns, its glorious victories and shameful defeats, but now developer Arrowhead has a new dichotomy for us. A new major order offers the Helldivers a simple, strategic choice: unlock a powerful new strategem, or save a planet-load of very ill children.
This major order follows on from a previous one. In April Helldivers had the choice of liberating Choohe or Penta, with the planets respectively granting the MD-17 Anti-Tank Mines or the RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher. The Helldivers en masse made the patriotic choice of going for the rocket launcher, leaving the mines for another day. That day seemed to have come when another major order offered it as a reward for destroying two billion Automatons… except we didn't.
Now the chance for the mines has rolled around again, except the alternative this time is very different. The new major order's text reads:
"An emergency distress call from Vernen Wells describes thousands of civilian survivors trapped in the remains of 'Super Citizen Anne's Hospital for Very Sick Children.' Meanwhile, intercepted Automaton communications have identified a large explosives repository on Marfark. These stores are very likely to contain the critical raw ingredients necessary to deploy MD-17 Anti-Tank Mines.
"Only the first planet liberated is likely to be saved. The Helldivers are trusted to determine which course of action—saving the children, or securing the mines—will ultimately save the most freedom."
Whichever way you cut it, the idea of Super Citizen Anne's Hospital for Very Sick Children awaiting rescue from the sociopathic Helldivers is a funny one. The major order has around four days to go and, at the time of writing, liberation efforts are currently focused on the planet leading up to the two planets where the choice must be made. It probably doesn't help that Vernen Wells, where the hospital is apparently located, is an absolute nightmare of a planet to fight on.
"Fight on a terrible planet for no reward, or get a new stratagem," says Dotamonkey24. "Blindingly easy choice really."
Suffer little children! But wait, for even among the Helldivers there are the shoots of compassion. The top post on the Helldivers 2 subreddit reads simply "We're saving the kids, soldiers", with TheyCallMe_Jul making the excellent point that "Those kids could test anti tank mines one day, don’t let them down!"
Another slight kink is that the various mine strategems are, anecdotally speaking, among the least-popular. I actually quite like placing the odd minefield, but they're a strategem that's very easy to use badly—huge start-up time, fixed once placed, sizeable cooldown, enormous friendly fire potential—and many prefer to use that slot for the somewhat more dependable sentries (or simply another Orbital / Eagle strike). I don't think this will be a huge factor, but let's just say that if a new mech suit or something was on offer these kids would have no chance at all.
There is one small chink of light, though I wouldn't go around holding out too much hope in this galaxy. Super Earth command does say that "only the first planet liberated is likely to be saved", and the load-bearing "likely" has some wondering whether it's going to be possible to both save the children, and get ourselves some sweet anti-tank mines.
Elsewhere in Helldivers 2, Arrowhead's announced that it's going to be slightly slowing down from the breakneck pace of updates it's been maintaining since launch. Which is understandable, and the news was softened with the addition of the game's first vehicle (and a sweet throwing knife).
