Highlights

  • Helldivers 2's core gameplay loop showcases fun and engaging missions with longer objectives and optional tasks to keep players entertained.
  • The SEAF Artillery side objective in Helldivers 2 offers nuanced gameplay with strategic choices for loading different ammunition types into the cannon.
  • Players can exercise choice and strategy in completing the SEAF Artillery objective, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and communication for optimal results.

Major orders and new critical mission objectives have had their heyday in Helldivers 2 and not undeservedly so. One of the most recent major orders saw the gravitational collapse of Helldivers 2’s Meridia and its Terminid supercolony, for instance, turning it into a black hole.

However, the true backbone of Helldivers 2 is how fun or engaging its core gameplay loop can be in the downtime between these extravagant events against managed democracy’s enemies. This includes much longer missions than ‘Deploy Dark Fluid’ or ‘Evacuate High-Value Assets’ and a focus on optional objectives, such as loading the ‘SEAF Artillery’ cannon.

But while many side objectives simply task players with dropping a stratagem nuke or hellbomb down on a remote structure, SEAF (Special Earth Armed Forces) Artillery can either give players a little more to think about for a preferred outcome or be another blue icon on the map that they rush to grey out without a second’s thought.

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Helldivers 2’s SEAF Artillery is Completed at Players’ Discretion

Few side objectives have the nuance SEAF Artillery has, but for all of its granular considerations it can be completed swiftly and carelessly and players will collectively reap the reward of five stratagem payloads all the same. Helldivers 2’s SEAF Artillery side objective features five different ammunition types, each with its own color-coded shell that players may be able to find strewn about the cannon’s site:

  • Explosive (green).
  • High-Yield (orange).
  • Mini Nuke (black).
  • Napalm (red).
  • Smoke (grey).
  • Static (blue).

SEAF shell colors are subject to change as they have before via patches, but thankfully players can also know with certainty what shells they’re picking up every time by reading the text prompt label that appears when players are near them. When it comes to how players can load artillery shells into the SEAF cannon there are a few habitual permutations that are reliant on varying factors in Helldivers 2:

  • Indiscriminately and instantly grabbing and inserting whatever shells are nearby regardless of their label or color (likely the most popular option due to matters typically being urgent).
  • Grabbing whatever shells are nearby and piling them at the base of the SEAF cannon before purposefully inserting them in the particular order players wish to employ them (likely an unpopular option due to needing a lot of foresight into how each individual shell might be used in the remainder of a mission).
  • Only grabbing shells that players know they’ll want to insert into the SEAF cannon, which is dependent on how many ammunition shells are actually lying around and assessed based on how many of any individual shell type there happens to be.

Helldivers 2 Side Objectives Like SEAF Artillery Honor Player Choice

This is all also assuming that full squads are working on this particular Helldivers 2 side objective and not one or two lone Helldivers who aren’t even communicating with one another, which is the case more often than not. It would seem ideal to take time selectively choosing which shells to load into the cannon in case an ammunition type was neglected or if more than one of an unwanted shell was tossed into the pile at the cannon’s base.

Either way, SEAF Artillery allowing players to exercise choice and strategy in how they might complete it is what a lot more side objectives should strive toward, particularly with an emphasis on how optional strategy may or may not result in a reward tailored to how a squad of Helldivers could want to play. In the meantime, lugging shells over to the cannon continues to be an exciting palette for player choice, even when another player has already activated the terminal and Terminids have begun spilling out of a nearby bug hole.