After tumultuous back and forth, there's a new Major Order to liberate all Automaton planets in Helldivers 2 and crush the bot threat in the Western front. It's looking like the climax for an arc of the Galactic War that's now defined several consecutive weeks of Helldivers 2, and as players continue to spill oil in the name of democracy, the nature and direction of the game's emergent narrative has gotten some timely details straight from developer Arrowhead.
Community manager Spitz shared some fascinating insights on the making of Major Orders and the shifting chronicles of the forever war in recent Discord comments. Some specifics pre-date the current Major Order, but it all ties into the overarching story orbiting planets like Tibit and Malevelon Creek. On March 31, right around the time a previous Major Order suffered an ultimately lethal setback, Spitz explained:
"Here's the thing. No matter what happens with the [Major Orders], there's going to be a fun narrative set up by the [Game Master] that leads into future operations, and frankly it's not as fun of a story if we just steamroll the Automatons and win everything. Some losses and failed operations make the greater story more interesting, it's not like the GM is going to take a single MO failure and start making the game un-fun."
In a follow-up comment, Spitz offered an example of how the narrative may branch: "If we capture Tibit late and fail the Major Order but still end up capturing it, the GM is still going to work it into the story and have us focus somewhere else next week. Only thing the timer affects is the medal reward."
- 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"
- After an eventful year, Helldivers 2 devs hope "it will be less of a bumpy road when it comes to release accuracy" - but Arrowhead is still "prepared to take risks"
The line that stands out to me is this, also dated March 31: "Capturing Tibit after the MO expires won't get you the medal reward, but it'll still make a difference in the upcoming narrative and future MOs." This helps put the lens of Game Master Joe into perspective. He's making a list and checking it twice, and he's looking at more than just the current Major Order's planets. Or as Spitz put it:
"Depending on what we've captured by then, it'll determine what we focus on next. If we capture Tibit late and fail the Major Order but still end up capturing it, the GM is still going to work it into the story and have us focus somewhere else next week."
More recently, Spitz clarified that this isn't necessarily a linear chain of events with one-to-one causation. A previous defense-focused order skipped Tibit and focused on Malevelon Creek and Draupnir, for example, but Tibit has come up again now. Successes and failures that are multiple orders old, or off simmering in some fringe sector, may still be relevant. On April 1, Spitz added:
"I say something like 'capturing Tibit after the MO ends will still affect the story going forward' and then people immediately jump all over me when the next MO is Malevelon Creek and the dispatch says that Tibit's production factories have moved.
"Of course they moved, you didn't capture it in time, that doesn't mean capturing it now isn't going to prevent it from being in a future Major Order. The current operation is to eradicate the bots entirely, so whatever you liberate in the meantime will not have to be liberated later as part of a MO, it should be common sense."
To the surprise of no one, as user discussion descended into senseless finger-pointing from folks mad about failing any orders, Spitz also said: "I'm just going to stop commenting on how the Galactic War system works in here because of how many people misunderstand or take it out of context and then get upset." Which is a darn shame. Obviously the community manager isn't going to up and disappear – indeed, they're still very active in Discord discussions – but this is exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes perspective I've wanted since Helldivers 2 launched, and I'd love to hear more about how the devs react to player behavior.
Helldivers 2 is obviously gameplay-first, but its approach to storytelling is arguably the most novel thing about it. Maybe we'll get a missive from Joel himself one of these days.
Helldivers 2 references one of Starship Trooper's worst characters via its new leveling system.
