Helldivers 2 community rallies for a new fight with the Automatons

destructoid.com:

Plenty of praise has been already directed at Arrowhead Studios’ latest flagship release, Helldivers 2, but the fact of the matter is that the game is only just kicking off. Notably, the cyborg Automaton faction has mounted its first full-fledged onslaught in Helldivers 2, and it’s a wildly different sort of battlefield.

While Helldivers 2‘s Terminids are a swarm of angry, violent bugs (that can be harvested for fuel, coincidentally), the Automatons are a terrifying army of angry, violent Terminators. Well-organized and properly equipped, Automaton forces are now in the limelight, and the community is coming to terms with the new war front by formulating new tactics and, of course, sharing memes.

Breaking: Automatons Launch Brazen Assault on Multiple Well-Populated Planets pic.twitter.com/f6Idb6xyTG

Broadly speaking, if you too are just moving on from fighting Terminids over to dealing with Automatons, you’ll find yourself wishing those mechs were in the game already. The official Helldivers 2 Twitter account has announced that the Automatons are now the primary threat that the player base will need to deal with, and the shift in applicable tactics and combat gameplay is fairly impressive indeed.

More specifically, whereas dealing with Terminids was an exercise in good kiting tactics and positioning, Automatons are technically a more conventional threat, firing high-power lasers and calling in dropships from afar. From the lightweight Terminator-looking, lightsaber-wielding scouts to powerful armored vehicles, Helldivers 2‘s cyborgs necessitate good use of cover and long-range encounters. Such a substantial shift in combat doctrine has done a number on newcomers to the Automaton front, as one would expect.

“With the rain this is quickly becoming Space Vietnam 2.0,” said Treetisi on Reddit, commenting on a propaganda-style poster created by rangertursi. Rangertursi’s delightful poster says “If it bleeds, we can kill it,” referencing Predator, but Redditor