0 Comments 
With the prominence of diving to protect Super Earth and liberate our colonies, the lore around Helldivers 2 often takes a back seat. Joel and other devs sprinkle some interesting occurrences from time to time, just enough to make the fans hungry for more. We remember when the Illuminate appearances were just an urban legend (kind of like Herobrine). Then there was that prominent black hole incident. There is always more, and in contrast, fans love to speculate about the implications of some seemingly mundane aspects of the game.
Helldivers 2 fans ask the important lore questions
We can all appreciate that many designs in the game have a utilitarian feel to them. They look practical enough to increase verisimilitude while being sci-fi enough to fit firmly into the genre. For example, YorhaUnit8S on Reddit has spotted an interesting trend. One shape seems to keep repeating over and over again. It vaguely resembles the shape of a gun holster, but there has to be more to it than that. The recently observed democratic space station follows the same pattern.
Of course, it could all be just a coincidence. A good-looking shape that the game’s artists enjoy implementing. Or it could be something more. Perhaps an STC replicated throughout Super Earth’s production lines. While it has no tangential influence on the game (yet!), it’s fun to find these sorts of easter eggs and speculate about what they could mean. As FeralSquirrels pointed out: “Developer: Jeez let’s just keep re-using this shape, it seems kinda future-greebly-like eh? Community: Cats and dogs sleeping together, the ground is the sky, automatons are in my soup! Conspiracies!”
The gravity of the situation
Another fun observation that could actually come into play in the future is the question of gravity in Helldivers 2. It’s obvious that all planets we land on seem to have the same Earth-like gravity – 1G, or 9.8 m/s². Peanut_Butt3r675 has been wondering the same thing in their meme thread. But besides the joke, the question bears a bit more thought. As others have pointed out, most planets we’re fighting over have been terraformed before the galactic conflict. Therefore, they would have been set to approximately resemble Earth’s gravity. Now, if you’re a fan of hard sci-fi, you’d know that terraforming and gravity alteration are two vastly separate operations. The power needed to perform something like that hints at a higher level of scientific progress than what we see in the game.
However, let’s let it slide for now and say they had their gravity altered to match Earth’s. How cool would it be to introduce different gravity levels to the game? They could slot nicely into the Planetary Hazards category, with entries for >1G and <1G. In rudimentary terms, the higher gravity pull could slow everyone’s traversal and make things fall from the sky at greater speeds. Meanwhile, lower gravity could make objects fly further away, including our own ragdolled models. We can see how this could cause gameplay issues though, so it would need a lot of fine-tuning and balancing to work.
The game tells a story – if you look for it
One of our favourite unsung aspects of the game is the environmental storytelling that can sometimes be observed. There are the obvious ones, like failed Hellpod landings, last stands of previous Helldiver fireteams, and Super Earth flags planted during previous operations. Then there are more subtle or rare ones, like Terminid tendrils sometimes corrupting human-made facilities and the slow spread of their spores around the nests.
But our favourite has to be the story around factories on Automaton-held planets. If you take the time to explore them (before blowing them up), you can see some grizzly clues. Piles of human corpses rendered after processing, hinting at the more sinister nature of their creation. After all, Automatons are a splinter of Cyborgs from the first game which calls their fabrication process into questions. Players have noticed the garbled cries from their troops mixed with the usual “Human scum” and “Helldivers must die”, such as “Kill me” or “They give us peace” when destroyed. That, combined with a frightening amount of head surgery, decapitations, and brain extractions tells a grim story that could point to the reason they usually take their victims alive.
Between the storytelling potential of Terminids, Automatons, and our own faction, there is no shortage of fan theories. We love reading through them and piecing together any scraps of information. While the main focus of the game is certainly on diving for Democracy, these subtle stories that the devs take the time to pepper in are a great way to keep the community engaged. After all, not everything has to be about the next meta loadout or Major Order. Fans talking about even the most outlandish ideas is a good sign of a thriving and engaged community.