Helldiver 2’s long-awaited third enemy faction, the Illuminate – beforehand seen in Helldivers 1, however nonetheless conspicuously absent from its sequel – has briefly appeared in-game. Which hasn’t stopped developer Arrowhead Recreation Studios from declaring the incident to be “pretend information”.
Gamers started reporting unusual sightings throughout Helldivers 2‘s Galactic Conflict map (thanks PC Gamer) earlier in the present day, starting with a mysterious cluster of purple sectors the place gamers had beforehand solely seen purple for Automaton incursions and orange for Terminids.
If it is near-incontrovertible proof of an Illuminate presence you are after, although, then look no additional than the small purple image gamers found when rolling over one of many mysterious new purple sectors – an emblem long-time followers will instantly recognise because the circle-in-a-circle design representing the Illuminate faction in Helldivers 1.
Sadly for gamers hoping for solutions, developer Arrowhead’s speedy response was to spin up the in-game lore machine and have its Tremendous Earth Armed Forces Excessive Command dismiss the entire thing as a “latest server outage” attributable to a misplaced Comms Technician decomposing in a server farm someplace. It is a sometimes cheeky response from the studio, but it surely’s inconceivable to inform if Arrowhead actually is teasing the Illuminate’s imminent arrival (it actually has type right here), or if the entire incident genuinely was an unintended glitch.
Over on social media, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani has responded to studies of latest Illuminate sighting with two phrases: “pretend information”. That, after all, brings to thoughts the time Arrowhead chief artistic officer Johan Pilestedt dismissed gamers who’d claimed to have seen flying Terminids in-game as nothing however “bug sympathesers”, insisting “bugs cannot fly” – shortly earlier than their arrival was made official.
Hints the Illuminate will quickly be making a correct Helldivers 2 debut comes as Arrowhead continues to grapple with the fallout from August’s main Escalation of Freedom replace. Gamers had been notably sad with among the modifications made as a part of the patch, leading to Arrowhead committing to a 60-day plan that may see it addressing “basic inconsistencies in our strategy to recreation stability and recreation route.”
