Those enamored by the new Siege Breakers Warbond and Bastion Tank likely wouldn’t have noticed the impending Battle for Cyberstan in Helldivers 2. Nevertheless, it’s nearly upon us, going live tomorrow and seeing Super Earth’s forces battle against the Automatons and, surprisingly, the returning Cyborgs.
And while this may seem like another massive battle that the Helldivers will emerge victorious in, Arrowhead has something else in mind. Speaking to IGN, game director Mikael Eriksson revealed that Battle for Cyberstan is the “most ambitious” update yet for the team.
“One of the central points of Helldivers is that we play the game together with the community, and the actions of the community are not known to us, and the outcomes are not predetermined. This has been the case since launch, but of course, we’ve tried to expand on this with almost every update to make this more impactful and to make it more obvious what the different outcomes are and what the consequences will be.
“We still have many ambitious plans on how to expand on this even further, but for this time, the Battle for Cyberstan will be the most ambitious one yet, with a new type of meta gameplay. So it would be much more clear now for players what the consequences would be depending on how they choose to tackle this. So they can attack the planet from many different angles, and it would be very obvious when players get there, what the consequences are and what’s at stake.”
Of course, as Eriksson likes to emphasize, success is not a given, and even the development team doesn’t know how the dust will settle. “Again, the outcome is not predetermined, so we don’t know what will happen. Players can win, and players can lose, and it’s going to be super fun to see that play out. Last time, with the Battle for Super Earth, which I think was maybe the biggest one before this, we also didn’t know.
“Eventually, players actually managed to defend Super Earth, which was super cool to see. Following that was pure fun for everyone at the office except for maybe the Game Master, who was sweating a little bit, but for everyone else it was fun to see.”
The whole march towards Cyberstan began when the Automatons stole the schematics for Super Earth’s latest weapon, the Star of Peace. Seems straightforward enough, but why has the faction become so brazen? We’ll probably find out starting tomorrow, but alongside the Cyborgs, players must also face off against new Automaton tanks, which evoke Skynet’s armada from the Terminator films. That’s not including the massive Automaton cities with their hostile architecture.
Helldivers 2 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and it’s reportedly sold over 20 million units to date. Check out our review for the Xbox Series X/S version, which launched last August, here.
