Helldivers 2 players killed two billion Terminids in just 14 hours

Arrowhead / Sony

Being the nice developer that it is, Arrowhead gave Helldivers 2 players a little break from fighting off the Automatons by throwing in a new Major Order to kill two billion Terminids. That’s like, a lot. The timeline given for this order was six days – but the Helldivers were so hungry for that E-710, they wiped out those two billion bugs in a mere 14 hours. What’s a little overnight genocide in the name of Managed Democracy, right?

“Soon, we will take the fight back to the Automatons and reclaim our rightful ownership over the planets they have defiled. But first, we must recover. Super Earth High Command have authorized immediate and extensive farming of the Terminid presence in the eastern galactic rim, estimating that two billion Terminid corpses must be procured in order to supply our counter-offensive in the west. Rest assured, these creatures are not sentient and exist solely to provide E-710 to the war effort. Let's get to work, Helldivers,” the missive from High Command about the mission stated. Players sure went to work afterwards.

Of course, this may end up backfiring on them – they could have had six blissful days crushing bugs, but with this order already fulfilled, everyone might find themselves back on the Automaton front sooner than expected.

The Helldivers cleared this milestone so quickly, some players around the world didn’t even get to participate in this fun relaxation activity, as the entire thing went down while they were at work.

It’s clear that players were highly motivated to get back to killing bugs after spending all their time running defense missions against the Automatons. One could argue as well that the challenging conditions on the western front over the last couple of weeks made true veterans out of many Helldivers, bolstering their combat capabilities and making the Terminids easy prey.

It’ll be interesting to see what move Arrowhead’s game master, the almighty Joel, makes next – after all, this Major Order probably was as much about giving the players a break as buying him time to deploy his next scheme. But what will it be? More bots? A new enemy faction? We’ll just need to stay tuned.