Helldivers 2’s Cognitive Disruptor is a Great Play on Illuminate Horror

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 17, 2025 5 Views 5 Min Read
Helldivers 2’s Cognitive Disruptor is a Great Play on Illuminate Horror



Helldivers 2 is an outstanding sci-fi romp and perhaps its greatest asset is its ability to marry slapstick humor, beautiful planetary vistas, and the occasional stressful encounter with Terminids, Automatons, and the Illuminate. Indeed, each enemy faction behaves like its own little corner of sci-fi horror, even if Helldivers 2 isn’t outright scary—soulless red-eyed machines, abhorrent bile-spewing monstrosities, and oppressive humanity-enslaving aliens. Likewise, each faction has its own quirks and mission objectives to pursue.

Some mission objectives are only slightly variable between factions, such as having to nuke bunkers, holes, or Warp Ships in an effort to thwart enemy production/spawns, while others are highly distinct and can result in one faction being more favorable than another depending on player preference.

What’s doubly entertaining is when a faction’s mission objective is rewarding in the degree of immersion it implements in Helldivers 2, such as having to deactivate a Stratagem Jammer in order for teammates to use stratagems in that area. There’s a similar mission objective on Illuminate planets, too, and its twist on it is a reminder of the horror players are diving down to confront.

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Helldivers 2 recently debuted the Illuminate enemy faction as a terrifying threat alongside the best weapon imaginable to fell it with.

Helldivers 2’s Cognitive Disruptors are a Pungent Taste of the Illuminate’s Alien Brainwashing

In particular, Illuminate mission maps that have a handful of objectives (which feature the Illuminate’s miniature cities in Helldivers 2) contain tasks such as Rogue Research Station, SEAF SAM Site, and Purge Illuminates, as well as one that is aptly called Cognitive Disruptor. This side objective is indeed similar to the Automaton’s Stratagem Jammer, but it retains uniqueness as Cognitive Disruptor obelisks encrypt and overwrite stratagem names in the Illuminate’s alien language while also scrambling stratagem codes.

Therefore, stratagems can still be used when scrambled by a Cognitive Disruptor in Helldivers 2 but players will need to have surgical hands in a panic because the combination of directional inputs they may have previously memorized and punched countless times via muscle memory will now require a random combination that also changes rapidly until players begin inputting it.

Likewise, they may not remember precisely where their desired stratagem is in a long list that is translated into the Illuminate’s alien language when players are in range of a Cognitive Disruptor. Having a ‘jammer’ that doesn’t prohibit the use of stratagems but rather scrambles them and makes it slightly more difficult for players to parse and execute them is brilliant, whereas jamming them completely makes for a tedious trek to the jammer itself.

Moreover, Cognitive Disruptors have power supply panels to destroy rather than having to punch a code into a terminal, which is a bit more dynamic anyhow. Automatons’ Stratagem Jammers are definitely more difficult to deal with, especially since Automatons themselves are more challenging in hordes than any Illuminate enemy. Still, Cognitive Disruptors have a charm that Stratagem Jammers lack.

It’s fascinating to have this disruption occur as an assault on players’ mental faculties, as evidenced by the blue, eerie effect on the screen/HUD (not unlike when an icy chill is overcast), and is a terrifying reminder of how the Illuminate are enslaving human minds to produce the Voteless.

It’s unknown how many more variations of the Illuminate will arrive later on in Helldivers 2, but any additions to their ranks will hopefully be immersed in the same engrossing science-fiction as opposed to simply providing players with something else to nuke. So much of what makes Helldivers 2 engaging is how much it leans into a visceral plunge of senseless obliteration, and yet the Illuminate playing mind games and contributing something more cerebral is precisely what could make the game special with a lot more longevity.

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