The Helldivers 2 community is vehemently against being given an Anti-Tank Mines Stratagem for reasons that started off as failures but have evolved from being a meme into actual in-game lore with the latest Major Order. It’s now at the point where players are actively fighting against being handed the Stratagem for free.
The latest Major Order in Helldivers 2 tasks players with defeating 1.5 billion enemies over two days. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, but the reward for losing the Major Order is splitting the player base. Should we lose the Major Order, we’ll get the Anti-Tank Mine Stratagem as a new deployable weapon. However, players have been fighting against having this Stratagem for so long that they can’t help but want to succeed, so they don’t get it. Of course, the entire thing is complicated further by those who just want to play missions and win every Major Order.
Whoever wins, we lose
In early 2024, one of the first Major Orders in Helldivers 2 made players choose between Anti-Tank Mines and another Stratagem, depending on which planet was liberated. Players opted for the other Stratagem, then failed the next Major Order to unlock Anti-Tank Mines. After that, players had to choose between saving fictional children from fictional hospitals and unlocking the Anti-Tank Mines Stratagem, and they chose the children.
Since then, fighting against getting the Anti-Tank Mines Stratagem has been more than a meme in Helldivers 2. It’s lore. The current Major Order flips this on its head, though, rewarding players with the Anti-Tank Stratagem if they fail it because it shows they need help.
At the time of writing, players have killed 500 million enemies out of a goal of 1.5 billion. Should they fail, they’ll be given the Anti-Tank Mines Stratagem. This should be easy, considering we decimated 100 million Terminids in under 3 hours. But players are holding back.
Players on the Helldivers 2 subreddit don’t think we can uphold the meme this time, and others can see Game Master Joel laughing maniacally behind the scenes. User IsorokuYamamoto659 says, “According to the math, we’re behind schedule based on the amount of time that we have left.” But I’m not convinced. We still have a day and a half, including two weekend evenings. There’s plenty of time to hit that number.
The tug of war right now is between those Helldivers who want to uphold the meme and those who want the Anti-Tank Mines Stratagem. I don’t know how evenly matches their groups are, but the casual players and those who just want to complete every Major Order will definitely be pumping those numbers as much as they can.
The final cog in this complex machine is the fact that we just failed a lengthy Major Order that saw us coordinating to kill as many Automatons as possible to liberate five planets. Under any other circumstances, I think the community could pull together to fail this Major Order and get that new Stratagem. As things stand, I’m pretty sure we’ll succeed and can kiss those Anti-Tank Mines goodbye.
