To liberate planets in Helldivers 2, players need to team up and complete missions and operations to crush enemies with sweet liberty. As Super Earth faces threats from multiple angles across the galaxy, Helldivers will spend most of their time slaughtering legions or bugs and more in the name of freedom and liberation. Since liberating planets in Helldivers 2 is a core aspect of the game and can also be very important when it comes to Major Orders, I've laid out the details on what you can do to help.
Liberating Helldivers 2 planets explained
Liberating any of the planets in the galaxy is a community effort that all Helldivers 2 players can contribute towards. Planets in need of liberating have a percentage that displays how much of the planet has been liberated with the ultimate goal being to increase it to 100% in the face of enemy resistance. It's a bit like a tug-of-war, but once the percentage reaches 100%, the planet will be successfully liberated and locked off – onto the next one!
To increase a planet's liberation percentage, players must complete operations on the planet – those are just the regular missions that you can select when viewing a planet on the map. These liberation campaigns are not to be confused with Helldivers 2 Defend campaigns, which are functionally similar but presented differently, looking more like a race.
- 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 has a Major Order problem, but the solution isn't simple because "having 100% participation means the MOs will always be won and that introduces other issues"
At the end of the final mission in an operation, players are shown their squad's contribution to the overall liberation percentage of the planet. Importantly, the squad contribution will be greater with more players in your squad and for completing an operation on a higher difficulty, so a full team of four players playing harder missions will help more than a lone Helldiver.
It's also very common for Helldivers 2 Major Orders to task players with liberating one or more planets before a time limit expires (usually 2-4 days) to complete a strategic goal and get some Medals. Success or failure can have an impact on future Major Orders and even new game features. Previously, successful Liberation campaigns have allowed Super Earth to provide Helldivers 2 Mechs to its elite troopers and have kept advancing Terminids at bay thanks to the deployment of the Terminid Control System.
Best ways to liberate planets in Helldivers 2 quickly
Let me stress that simply playing Helldivers 2 and completing operations is sufficient when it comes to liberating planets, and you're not going to get any special rewards for being Super Earth's strongest little Helldiver who contributed 0.23% to the liberation of Malevelon Creek or wherever. However, some Major Orders can be tight on time where every contributing soldier counts. If you want to get those rewards, some tips to help you maximize your liberation efforts might be useful:
- Play in a squad: For the average player just looking to complete some missions and have fun, playing in a squad is the best thing you can do to ensure you're contributing to Liberation campaigns. Be sure to use Helldivers 2 crossplay to play with friends or match with randoms via quickplay on all platforms.
- Pay attention to which planets are being focused on: When a Major Order tasks players to liberate more than one planet, take a look at the player count for each planet in the order and go to the most popular one. It's always best to rally together and focus on a single planet at a time to liberate it as quickly as possible before moving on.
- Play low-difficulty missions quickly: For hardcore liberators, completing Trivial or Easy difficulty missions as quickly as possible is the best way to boost a planet's liberation percentage. This goes with the caveat that you will be missing out on lots of XP, Requisition Slips, and Samples by playing this way, and it's so easy that it can be honestly a bit boring. Although you can also use this an opportunity to rapidly plunder POIs and gather Helldivers 2 Super Credits and Medals.
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