'Is this supposed to be rigged?' Helldivers 2 players fatigued as bugs leapfrog across supply lines like a bunch of dirty cheaters

Helldivers 2 has some major problems with its major orders. We saw a little of this discontent earlier in the year with the Menkent Line, where the futility of setting up a faux defence, only to see it crumple out of nowhere, sent players into a malaise.

Things were looking up later on when a separate order saw a planet permanently turned into a «black hole» which, I'm told once more by my democracy officer, is absolutely not a wormhole with the Illuminate on the other side. It seemed to be a great way to make the playerbase's hustle feel like it had an impact, aside from some glitches that plagued the order's early hours.

Unfortunately, things appear to have taken a downturn with the most recent major order, «Operation Jin Xi-Falstaff Lockdown», which sees players attempting to defend a set list of planets before the major order expires.

Yesterday, players stepped out of their cryo pods to find a key sector in the war effort—Jin Xi—had sprung an infestation out of nowhere. The sector has three planets key to the order so, as you might have guessed, players were none too pleased.

In terms of what's happening with the in-game lore, the game justifies this zag by pointing towards «abnormally large spore dispersals following recent Hive Annihilation Actions,» which «may have led to seeding of Jin Xi planets before the Terminids could be fully eradicated from adjacent worlds.»

Part of players' frustration stems from the feeling, in part, that the bugs just aren't playing fair. A recent update finally added «supply lines», a pre-existing mechanic players had mostly figured out, to the in-game map. The idea being that they could strategise, taking key locations to cut off invading forces. However, some of the worlds infested simply didn't care about these lines at all, which trashed a good amount of blood, sweat and tears with a wave of gamemaster Joel's magic wand.

«Is this supposed to be rigged and can we still win?» writes one player, sharing the trio of overtaken