Helldivers 2 players complete another major order by the skin of their teeth, and some can't help but feel Joel's going easy on them

With only hours to go, things were not looking good for Helldivers 2's latest major order. These come down from on-high with regularity, and shape the game's ongoing galactic war: in this case, Super Earth tasked the Helldivers with successfully liberating 10 planets from enemy takeover. Earlier in the week things looked a bit grim, with only three planets freed from alien tyranny, but as the finish line came into sight something remarkable happened. Call it democracy manifest if you like but, from my vantage point, it sure looked like we killed a lot of bots and bugs when the chips were down.

The reaction to this among Helldivers has been nearly uniform relief and jubilation, mainly because most had already given up. The order got off to a terrible start with two planets being lost by razor-thin margins early on, and the bot forces seemed unassailable before the turnaround. But as the dust settled further, the nature of that turnaround became its own question.

A major component of Helldivers 2's success thus far has been how invested the community is in the ongoing galactic war, and how Arrowhead is conducting the narrative. It hasn't all been plain sailing by a long shot, and the Helldivers have failed major orders along the way, but this kind of last-ditch success is the stuff that live service narrative dreams are made of. The Helldivers got caught on the hop by a whopping invasion force, lost some ground, and then grit their teeth and en masse pushed back against the tide. 

But this has left some Helldivers with a treasonous thought. Was it too simple? When things got gnarly, did Arrowhead turn the dial down and help us across the finish line? Helldivers 2's players are used to blaming game master Joel when things go pear-shaped, rightly or wrongly, but now there's a sense that he might've gone easy on us.

«I'm not going to lie, from one side I'm damn happy we got it, but from the other it feels a bit frustrating to get it on what largely was a last gasp gimme