During The Game Awards, Arrowhead Game Studios unleashed a new Helldivers 2 update that introduced the Illuminate, an alien race that was thought to be extinct. In-universe, the Illuminate had over a century to make their plans to invade Super Earth, but the players have already repelled the invasion in just under a week.
As reported by PC Gamer, over 100,000 players checked in with Helldivers 2 over a 24-hour period, the game’s highest numbers since April. And the combined forces expelled the Illuminate so thoroughly that this previously feared foe is now the subject of mockery by the triumphant players.
The same account noted that the fight against the Illuminate at Calypso was also one of the bloodiest battles in the game’s history.
As this meme points out, the victory over the Illuminate came by a very thin margin, and only because so many players were active. A second wave of the invasion may be a different story, especially if the players can’t marshal all of their forces.
Earlier this year, Arrowhead mapped out a 60-day plan to fix some of Helldivers 2’s lingering issues, many of which were addressed in a patch that dropped in September. And while a story mode isn’t in the cards, Helldivers 2 became one of the fastest-selling PlayStation games of all time, as well as one of GameSpot’s picks for the Best Games of 2024.