Highlights

  • Helldivers 2 offers players nine difficulty options with scaled challenges and rewards for heightened gameplay experiences.
  • Terminids in Helldivers 2 are challenging due to sheer numbers and ability to slow players down, requiring teamwork for swift purging.
  • Stalkers and shriekers in Terminid systems provide optional objectives, adding intricacy to missions.

Players have nine difficulty options to choose from in Helldivers 2 that scale with heightened challenges and rewards alike. Beyond that, Automatons are rarely easier to deal with than Terminids. In fact, the sole reasons why Terminids are often challenging in Helldivers 2 are their sheer numbers in any high-difficulty bug breach and how they can slow players to a crawl with nearly every attack, overwhelming them instantly thereafter. If players are working together as a well-oiled machine, though, this is largely irrelevant as hordes of bugs can be purged swiftly. Still, bugs’ unpredictability can get the better of players who are unaware of their surroundings.

Terminids can appear from almost any direction and sometimes seem like they spawn directly behind the player at times. Bug breaches certainly ensure that bugs can spawn from almost anywhere at any time, adding to the idea that they’ve taken over the planet and can emerge in a swarm to ambush Helldivers. Helldivers 2 doesn’t make Automatons nearly as unpredictable in their spawn points, but thankfully bugs do have specific variations that alert players to their spawn points nearby. This way, Terminids remain incredibly threatening on higher difficulties and give players optional objectives to look out for.

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Helldivers 2’s Stalkers and Shriekers Can Be Traced to Important Objectives

The host of a queued mission selects where the squad will dive and once they’ve landed players can turn to their mini-map to decide where they’ll explore or what mission objective they’ll pursue. Many points of interest are already revealed on the mini-map depending on what type of mission is selected, but there are also usually many hidden landmarks or side quests players can embark on.

These differ between Automaton and Terminid planets, too, with Terminid systems featuring some unique quests related to stalkers and shriekers in particular. Unlike most other Terminids that can spawn from basically anywhere (even gargantuan bile titans), stalkers and shriekers must emerge from authentic and discernible spawn points.

Stalker lairs and shrieker nests appear in the environment and can alert players to their respective bug’s whereabouts—though if these lairs and nests are in sight there’s little chance a stalker or shrieker hasn’t already shown itself.

This adds a layer of intricacy that Terminids wouldn’t have otherwise because players must then decide if they should let stalkers and shriekers interrupt their planned endeavors in order to cut them down, and doing so is encouraged because lairs and nests contribute to optional objectives completed in a mission. Fortunately, Terminids do have enemy types that can’t simply spawn from a bug breach as well, whereas Automatons either arrive via dropship or emerge from idle bunkers.

Bots Can Learn from Bugs’ Creativity in Helldivers 2

Stalkers aren’t ever fully invisible in Helldivers 2, but their speed and translucency allow them to creep up behind players at alarming rates. Once one has been seen and hopefully killed before it can fling the player away a great distance, the awareness sets in of a lair surely tucked away in a crag somewhere.

Similarly, players won’t see a shrieker flapping its wings in the sky without acknowledging that a nest spore must be near and possibly visible from where they are. Getting close to lairs and nests isn’t easy, especially if lone players attempt to preserve a hellbomb at a nest’s base until it can detonate, but doing so is worthwhile if players are hoping to achieve a complete sweep of objectives in a mission before the Destroyer’s timer expires.

Finding a more creative way for certain bots to spawn from comparable points of interest and relate them to critical quests might prove difficult since they seemingly can’t emerge randomly from a planet’s surface, which would err too much on Terminids’ gimmick. New outposts or bot installations would need to iterate authentically on what Helldivers 2 has accomplished.