It's an incredibly bold move for a live game, even the famously elastic and reactive Helldivers 2, whose wartime plot twists and surprise gear upgrades are masterminded by a shadowy GM known only as Joel. Swift Disassembly commenced on Friday, with a three-day time limit for players to complete enough missions on the bot-held planets of Maia, Durgen, and Tibit. With Durgen's fall today, it certainly looks like the bots are kaput.
The first Helldivers' Groundhog Day loop of galactic warfare restarting on a monthly cadence may provide a clue as to where we go next. Helldivers 2's more in-depth story management may mean a more twisty and surprising path, but I doubt this is the last we've seen of the Automatons. We've also got a remaining Helldivers 1 faction that's still fully MIA, the Illuminate, who are bound to show up sooner or later.
One thing's for sure though: Helldivers 2's live storytelling runs circles around anything I've ever seen before. I remain haunted by Destiny 2's rough Season of the Worthy, where so few people wanted to do its boring seasonal activity to fill a meter and move the plot, Bungie goosed the numbers to make it happen. Helldivers 2, meanwhile, has real stakes and momentum, as well as a sense it can always go either way.
