Helldivers 2 players gain Anti-Tank Mines but incur in-universe consequences for the schoolchildren

A recent Helldivers 2 Major Order seemed to be aimed specifically at forcing players to unlock the Anti-Tank Mines Stratagem. Something fans had been dodging every time it came up. However, this time, when they finally gave up on the meme, they didn’t expect it to cost Super Schoolchildren their air.

The Major Order in question tasked the Helldivers 2 community with killing a total of 1.5 billion enemies. If they succeeded, Super Earth wouldn’t give them the new mines because the old ones obviously worked. Failing the Major Order meant unlocking the Anti-Tank Mines Stratagem, and that’s exactly what happened. We managed to get to about 50% of the overall target before the Major Order ended, thinking the only thing we’d lose was the meme of always going against this Stratagem. But developer Arrowhead Game Studios was waiting to crush us.

Funding has to come from somewhere

The developer shared the news that Anti-Tank Mines would go into immediate production on Twitter. The news was accompanied by what many of us feel was the absolutely necessary gut punch: the funding for these mines was being taken from cash originally earmarked for schoolyard air improvement.

Anti-Tank Mines and children have a history in Helldivers 2. When players were first given a chance to unlock the Stratagem, we failed it, and then we failed it a second time. After that, it became a Stratagem that everyone always veered away from unlocking, which is why we all fought to save the game’s fictional children when the Stratagem reared its head yet again.

Now, after giving up in the face of what seemed like an inevitable battle against this Stratagem, we learn that our laziness has impacted those children we chose to save when we clearly fought much harder for our conviction. Considering we slaughtered 100 million Terminids in 3 hours, we should have been able to do this.

User Emil sums up my feelings best. “Oh no! What about the children?” I have to say I’m sorely tempted to go with user Yori’s suggestion on the Anti-Tank Mines “Let’s just refuse this strat for ever lol,” though I can see that becoming problematic from a team-killing perspective.

There’s also something to note about what this Stratagem unlock and its consequences say about our society. After all, Helldivers 2 is an accentuated version of the modern day that adores its military a little too much. Hopefully, players will have a chance to save the children of Super Earth’s colonies in a future Major Order to make up for this unintended atrocity.