Helldivers 2 goes underground with new Terminid hive worlds
The new Helldivers 2 update takes players into the Gloom to assault Terminid Hive Worlds
Since launch, Helldivers 2 players have been engaged in an intergalactic war against three terrible forces: the relentless Automatons, the sinister Illuminate, and the primal Terminids.
The war with the Terminids has resulted in a thick wall of pheromones across a swath of the known galaxy known as the Gloom, which is completely inaccessible to Super Earth exploratory fleets. The Helldivers have only been able to enter the Gloom in limited bursts in order to collect supplies for research, and those efforts have paid off. We’re now entering the Gloom in earnest with the latest update to Helldivers 2, which launched on Sept. 2.
Titled Into the Unjust, this update takes players to the Hive Worlds beyond the Gloom. As it turns out, it’s a terrible place to be! There are thick miasmas of fog, underground caverns, burrowing Chargers, and a fucking dragon. However, players will have some new tools at their disposal thanks to the recently announced Dust Devils warbond, which launches on Sept. 4, introducing weapons like a gaseous spear launcher, and a remotely guided missile silo.
The Terminids are a monstrous bug race inspired by Starship Troopers and Starcraft’s Zerg, and they’re also a source for one of Super Earth’s most valuable resources: space oil. As such, it’s hugely lucrative for the Helldivers to exterminate their colonies — and extremely dangerous, as the prolonged aggression leads to rapid evolution, resulting in many of the new enemy types arriving in the new update.
Last year, a major storyline in Helldivers 2 was Meridia. The once-peaceful planet had been infested with Terminids, and Super Earth tasked Helldivers with applying the “Terminid Control System” across many such worlds to eliminate the threat. Instead, the TCS did the exact opposite, triggering a defensive evolution so extreme that Meridia was on the cusp of becoming a “supercolony”. The Helldivers were able to pump the planet so full of Dark Fluid that it collapsed into a black hole. The Meridian Singularity drove much of the narrative, and culminated in the Illuminate siege of Super Earth itself.
Into the Unjust will likely have some similarly thrilling missions. Arrowhead advances the story through Major Orders and Operations, and players must meet the mission criteria — or fail and deal with the consequences. We’ll learn more about the Gloom and the narrative stakes that lie within as Into the Unjust unfolds after its release.
