Helldivers 2 May Have Shot Itself in the Foot With the Illuminate

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 18, 2025 177 Views 7 Min Read
Helldivers 2 May Have Shot Itself in the Foot With the Illuminate



Helldivers 2’s Omens of Tyranny update, which was shadow-dropped during The Game Awards 2024, has been a major boon for the game’s short-term success. This update checked several items off players’ wishlists, namely the introduction of the Illuminate enemy faction, alongside a new premium Warbond, proper melee weapons, new planet environments, a vehicle stratagem, and shortly after, the first-ever official Helldivers 2 crossover. So, naturally, releasing all this new content throughout Helldivers 2’s Omens of Tyranny update led to an immediate growth in the game’s player counts at a time when it was nearing an all-time low.

However, despite the Omens of Tyranny update leading to immediate short-term growth in the game’s player count, in hindsight, it may have been better for Helldivers 2’s long-term success to drip-feed this update, gradually releasing it in parts over time. Unless Helldivers 2 has plans to release another new enemy faction, managing to unite the player base the same way that the Omens of Tyranny update did will likely be hard to repeat, suggesting a troubling future for the live-service game.

Helldivers 2 Omens of Tyranny Update New Illuminate Faction Enemies Urban Legends Premium Warbond and Melee Weapons GAMERANT

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Helldivers 2 May Have Jumped the Gun on Introducing the Illuminate Faction

Helldivers 2 still has yet to surpass the peak player numbers the game saw at launch, though according to Steam Charts, Helldivers 2’s Omens of Tyranny update still managed to pull the game out of one of its biggest low points so far. Before this update, Helldivers 2’s peak player count on Steam in November 2024 was 56,787. Then, after the Omens of Tyranny update, Helldivers 2’s peak player count throughout December reached 148,524. Considering that this update delivered some of, if not the most highly-requested features among the game’s player base, it’s no surprise that it managed to rally players’ support at a time of need.

These statistics don’t reflect the game’s player counts on PlayStation 5, though Helldivers 2 approaching record-low player numbers on Steam is still a troubling sign for the game’s future, especially considering the recent reports of PlayStation canceling live-service games following Concord’s failure.

Helldivers 2’s Omens of Tyranny Update Sets an Impossibly High Bar for Future Updates

While this growth following the success of Helldivers 2’s Omens of Tyranny update was much needed, the game still has a long way to go before it ever comes close to reaching a new all-time high player count. Although the Illuminate faction has plenty of room to grow via new enemy units and new mission types in Helldivers 2, unless there are plans to introduce a fourth enemy faction, Helldivers 2 may have played its biggest trump card too early in the game’s lifecycle, leaving future updates with a seemingly impossible standard to live up to.

Helldivers 2 Playing the Long Game Is Arguably for the Best

In hindsight, it may have been better to gradually release some of the features introduced in this update, instead of shadow-dropping them all at once. Given the lack of marketing and anticipation, the release of the Illuminate faction in Helldivers 2 was arguably anticlimactic, whereas incorporating the Illuminate faction’s return and other parts of the Omens of Tyranny update into a series of Helldivers 2’s Major Order campaigns could have helped to build more hype for this debut.

Despite speculation and fan theories surrounding the return of the Illuminate faction growing, Helldivers 2 arguably still had plenty of room to explore new Galactic War events and Major Order campaigns focusing on the Automatons and Terminids without the need to introduce the Illuminate faction just yet. Ultimately, Helldivers 2 may need to introduce more enemy factions, and/or pace future content updates more carefully. Otherwise, the game may have trouble delivering fresh updates that retain players on a long-term basis.

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