Helldivers 2 players have had to make some tough choices in the past few months, and the Meridia Singularity is continuing to advance on Super Earth, consuming whatever unfortunate planets lie in its wake. The Galactic War continues apace, but Arrowhead has encountered one problem: Players aren’t interested in fighting the game’s third faction, the scary and squid-like Illuminate.
The Illuminate arrived with a splash, invading the southern quadrant of the galaxy after a surprise announcement at The Game Awards at the end of 2024. While the Terminids are known for aggressive heavy units and swarms of melee aliens, and the Automatons are a long-range faction with artillery, laser fire, and flamethrowers, the Illuminate fit snugly between those two extremes. They have hordes of zombies, known as Voteless, that are squishy but numerous. Then there are armored Overseers with a varied armory of weapons and terrifying War of the Worlds-style walkers known as Harvesters.
It’s a cool fantasy, and the alien invasion aesthetic feels fresh next to the Starship Troopers– and Terminator-inspired factions. For a while, players were happy to explore the new urban maps and fight against the squid menace. In the greater narrative, they’re the most threatening force we face by far — they’ve destroyed two planets and have Super Earth in their sights!
The problem is that they’re half a faction. Their roster is considerably limited compared to the bots and bugs. In the lore, this is easy to explain: They’re a vanguard unit, scouting out the galaxy before they send out the big guns. But for now, it means that fighting them can feel repetitive, and they’re substantially less difficult than the Terminids or Automatons. They don’t even have a monopoly on urban maps anymore; now all three factions can have cities to explore and fight over.
Complicating matters further is that the Illuminate don’t hold territory. The only way to fight them is to engage in a defense mission over a planet, which lasts for about a day. Once the planet is either defended or the timer runs out, the Illuminate leave and pop up in another sector later. A Major Order that asks players to defend against a bunch of Illuminate attacks requires more timing and coordination to hit every single defense, and it’s difficult to herd cats and pull this off — especially since people would rather go to another battlefront and fight a more entertaining enemy.
Luckily, it’s clear that Arrowhead has many tricks up its sleeve for diversifying an alien faction and introducing new units. We’ve seen new units sneak into the game before, like flying Terminid Shriekers and terrifyingly efficient Automaton Factory Striders. Arrowhead has also introduced short-term variants of familiar enemies that drastically change the flow of gameplay. The Stalker is a vicious threat at the best of times, but the Predator Strain introduced mutated packs of swarming Stalkers. The Automatons have gotten a big buff recently, with new fabricators that are bigger and harder to destroy, the introduction of an Incineration Brigade, and perhaps most horrifying of all, Factory Striders with Stratagem Jammers on the back.
The current Major Orders are focused on the Meridia Singularity, which is controlled by the Illuminate, but Arrowhead seems to recognize variety is the spice of life. The last string of Major Orders have focused on the original two factions. At the game’s launch, Terminids were considered the easy faction and Automatons were less popular. It’s probable that, as Arrowhead continues to tweak and rebalance the game, the Illuminate will come into their own. For now, though, they’re just too few and too similar. I can’t wait to see their version of a Bile Titan, but while I wait, I’ll be focusing on the two familiar fronts of bots and bugs.
