Helldivers 2's Omens of Tyranny update has added almost everything divers have been asking for: melee weapons, cars, giant city biomes, and after an in-game century, the return of the Illuminate, who were designed to turn the game into the "three-front battle" it is now.
The Illuminate were a major faction in the first top-down game, but divers have been waiting for their comeback ever since the sequel's launch earlier this year, especially since developer Arrowhead have been relentlessly teasing (and then denying) their existence for months now.
"It's finally the three-front battle of the galactic war that I think a lot of players have been waiting for," production director Alex Bolle said in an interview with GamesRadar+ ahead of their The Game Awards 2024 reveal. "And to be fair, us too."
- Helldivers 2 players beat the Illuminate back but they're still freaking out citizens, so High Command wants to build a surveillance center which definitely won't be used for spying
- Helldivers 2's Galactic War resumes as Arrowhead fixes its broken liberation rates, and High Command insists anyone who saw anything weird "may be suffering from Illuminate mind-influence"
Game director Michael Eriksson acknowledged the pent-up hype, too: "Everyone who played Helldivers 1 knows the Illuminate, and players have been wanting to know, 'where did it go? What happened with them?' And this is a start of this new chapter." While you can go and shoot some aliens in Helldivers 2 right now, Eriksson explains that "not all will be revealed [on] day one" because Arrowhead is sticking with its usual storytelling ways and revealing information "step-by-step."
Whatever happens from here is up to how divers respond, however. "With every update that we do, we want to go even more into the direction of giving more player agency and having players have a bigger and bigger impact on the Galactic War and what happens in the war," Eriksson continues, before explaining that the update generally offers a "very different" experience for long-time bug squashers with a touch of satire. "It's more of a horde zombie kind of gameplay against what we're calling 'voteless', because their freedom has been taken from them, and they're just used for tools for the purposes of war by the Illuminates - which of course Super Earth does not like, they would never do that."
It might also be a "more difficult experience, at least initially, than when you're playing against the bots and the bugs." So, careful out there divers, and check out this High Command-assigned guide on how to beat Helldivers 2's Illuminate faction before you go on any further.
Helldivers 2 is undoubtedly 2024’s biggest success, and major studios should be taking note.
