Helldivers 2 devs "actually expected a lot less players to move to the Automaton front," but a full 70% of the game's community was fighting the good fight

gamesradar.com:

The developers behind Helldivers 2 didn't expect many players to join the assault on the Automatons, but surprisingly, a whopping 70% of the player base joined the fight for tyrannical democracy. 

Helldivers 2's Galactic Table relegates the bug hordes and the mechanical armies to different sides of the map, and players have expectedly chosen their favorite mission types. Bugdivers and Botdivers will usually stick to fighting the faction they find most enjoyable to squash, though the majority of players supposedly break away from old habits when High Command commands it.

Community manager Spitz revealed some insights into player behavior over on the game's Discord channel on March 31. "70% of players have been fighting bots and we got Ubanea to 96% before Draupnir fell," the community manager explains. "I'd say people are perfectly fine fighting wherever the [Major Order] sends them."

Spitz is of course referring to the recently unsuccessful assault on the Automaton homebase, a failure that High Command blamed on those aforementioned troops that were "diverted" elsewhere. Players didn't quite mobilize in time and instead lost crucial planets to the mechanized forces.

Those fractured military forces eventually came together in stronger numbers than developer Arrowhead Studios predicted, though. "We actually expected a lot less players to move to the Automaton front for this [Major Order]," Spitz continues, "70% is huge."

That majority wasn't quite enough to finish the Automatons for good, but a new Major Order has given players a second chance at total victory. Unfortunately, the liberation campaign only reached 25% of its goal after 28 hours - less than ideal stats - which has left some grunts disgruntled and feeling like victory might be out of reach again.

Helldivers 2 is introducing a new heavy armor set that can protect against huge explosions, which might just turn the tide of this war.

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