Highlights

  • Helldivers 2 maintained momentum with captivating gameplay and live-service implementation.
  • Player count has started to decline, but adding the Illuminate faction could boost the game.
  • Celebrating Helldivers 2's six-month anniversary with cosmetics and a Warbond could reinvigorate the community.

Almost six months after its release, Helldivers 2 is still one of the biggest surprises of the year. While the first Helldivers was a solid success, it wasn't hugely popular, meaning that there wasn't too much hype going into the launch of Helldivers 2 back in February. But somehow, Helldivers 2 managed to become one of the biggest games in the world, at least for a little while.

With a captivating core gameplay loop and some genuinely engaging live-service implementation, Helldivers 2 maintained an impressive player count for a good few months, and developer Arrowhead did its best to keep that momentum going with consistent Warbond and Stratagem drops. But Helldivers 2's player count has begun to falter, and while that's natural for most multiplayer games, a live-service title like Helldivers 2 hinges itself on being able to retain a player base. Thankfully, there's still an ace up Helldivers 2's sleeve, and July is the perfect time to play it.

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Helldivers 2: Best Mods to Install Right Now

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July Is The Right Time for The Illuminate to Join Helldivers 2

July Marks Helldivers 2's Six-Month Anniversary

On July 8, Helldivers 2 will have its six-month anniversary. To mark the occasion, Arrowhead should go all out and celebrate just how far the game's come. These celebrations should include a wealth of new cosmetics marking key events that have happened in the community over the last six months, in a similar vein to the Malevelon Creek cape players got a little while ago. A celebratory Warbond would also be great to see, maybe including some celebration-themed weapons such as a gun that shoots fireworks.

But if Arrowhead really wanted to go above and beyond, then it would finally add the Illuminate to Helldivers 2. A faction present in the original Helldivers but still mysteriously missing from the sequel, the Illuminate has been rumored to return to the galaxy for months now, with some concept art of the faction leaking a while ago. Though the species is technically extinct in the lore, there are plenty of narrative ways to explain its return, and the opportunity to deliver a new enemy faction is more than worth the risks to the game's story. Fans have been anticipating an Illuminate reveal for a while now, and Helldivers 2's six-month anniversary is the perfect milestone for it.

The Illuminate Could Restore Helldivers 2's Community

As noted, Helldivers 2's player base is on a steady decline right now. According to SteamDB, Helldivers 2's all-time peak player count occurred back in February, when the game reached 458,709 concurrent players on Steam. Though Helldivers 2's player count had a brief spike in April, it's been steadily decreasing ever since, with just 41,000 players online at the time of writing, which is 20,000 less than the previous week.

Though Helldivers 2's 40,000+ player count is still solid, it's a far cry from the impressive heights it once reached. It's clear that Helldivers 2 needs to do something big to bring players back, and finally adding the Illuminate would likely do just that. The Illuminate would hopefully add an array of new enemies to the game, all of whom would require the player to learn some new tactics, as their fighting style would hopefully be quite different from anything players have experienced with the Terminids and Automatons. This would essentially restart Helldivers 2's addictive gameplay loop for many, requiring even the most seasoned players to rethink their weapons, Stratagems, and Boosters, and experiment with new playstyles.